BX  7343    .Al  H33 
Haley,   J.   J.  1851-192A. 
Makers  and  molders  of  the 
Reformation  movement 


i 


Makers  and  Molders 

of  the 

Reformation  Movement 


A  STUDY  OF  LEADING  MEN  AMONG 
THE  DISCIPLES  OF  CHRIST 

BY  J.  J.  HALEY 


WITH  AN 

INTRODUCTION  BY  J.  H.  GARRISON 

Editor  Emeritus  Christian-Evangelist 


Printed  and  Published  by 

CHRISTIAN  BOARD  OF  PUBLICATION 
2712  PINE  STREET,  ST.  LOUIS.  MO. 


Copyright.  1914 
CHRISTIAN  BOARD  OF  PUBLICATION 
Si.  Louis,  Mo. 


I 


INTRODUCTION 


To  revitalize  history,  by  making  the  men 
who  were  chief  actors  in  it  to  live  again,  is 
the  work  of  a  literary  artist.  One  who  does  it 
successfully  must  know  the  history  of  the 
movement  he  writes  about,  not  only  in  its  ex- 
ternal phases  of  growth  and  achievement,  but 
in  the  hidden  forces  which  underlie  these 
changes  and  activities.  Great  personalities 
are  the  dominant  factors  of  history.  As  no 
one  can  know  the  history  of  the  United  States 
without  knowing  something  of  George  Wash- 
ington, Patrick  Henry,  John  Adams,  Thomas 
Jef¥erson,  Daniel  Webster,  Henry  Clay,  Abra- 
ham Lincoln,  and  a  host  of  other  patriot- 
statesmen,  so  the  history  of  the  Reformation 
of  the  Nineteenth  Century,  as  urged  by  the 
Disciples  of  Christ,  can  be  understood  only  by 
those  who  know  something  of  the  chief  per- 
sonalities who,  at  dif¥erent  periods  of  its  de- 
velopment, have,  under  God,  done  most  to 
shape  its  policy  and  mold  its  spirit.  In  this 
volume  the  author  has  called  up  out  of  the 
more  or  less  misty  Past  some  of  the  most 
forceful  personalities  in  the  history  of  this 
movement,  and  with  a  few  touches  of  a  mas- 
ter's hand,  has  caused  them  to  pass  before  us 


4 


INTRODUCTION 


again ;  a  noble  company,  whose  memories  we 
are  to  revere,  whose  virtues  we  are  to  emu- 
late, and  whose  mistakes,  natural  to  their  age 
and  environment,  we  are  to  avoid,  if  we  are 
able  to  discern  them  in  the  larger  light  of  our 
day. 

Of  the  ten  men  whose  character  and  work 
are  sketched  in  this  volume,  more  than  half 
were  personally  known  to  the  writer  and  sev- 
eral were  his  w^arm  personal  friends.  The 
others  are  known  by  their  writings.  In  every 
case  the  able  author  has  shown  a  discriminat- 
ing mind  in  estimating  the  chief  character- 
istics of  the  man  and  his  contribution  to  our 
history.  The  readers  of  this  small  volume 
may  well  feel  that  they  have  here  true  por- 
traits, as  far  as  they  go,  of  the  men  and  of 
their  work. 

One  of  the  most  valuable  features  of  this 
volume  is  the  faithful  portraiture  of  the  reli- 
gious movement  itself.  Its  mistakes  and  er- 
rors are  not  concealed,  but  the  author  sees 
that  these  are  the  natural,  if  not  inevitable, 
results  of  fallible  men,  no  matter  how  great 
and  good  they  may  be,  who  seek  to  incarnate 
a  high  ideal.  He  points  out  how  these  mis- 
takes have  been,  and  are  being,  outgrown. 
How  could  it  be  otherwise  if  the  movement  be 


INTRODUCTION 


5 


of  God  and  is  indwelt  by  the  Holy  Spirit,  who 
is  to  guide  us  into  all  truth? 

We  welcome  this  volume  and  the  great  and 
good  men  it  causes  to  pass  before  us  again  in 
review.  We  seem  to  hear  their  voices,  soft- 
ened and  mellowed  by  their  celestial  experi- 
ences, bidding  us  to  be  true  to  the  great  Leader 
and  Captain  of  our  salvation  and  to  the  holy 
cause  of  unity  among  his  followers.  Inspired 
by  their  heroism  and  their  unselfish  devotion 
to  high  ideals,  we  shall  be  better  able  to  ac- 
complish the  great  unfinished  tasks  before  us. 

J.  H.  Garrison. 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2014 


https://archive.org/details/makersmoldersofrOOhale 


CONTENTS 


\/  Page 

THOMAS  CAMPBELL  11 

Creative  Personality  of  the  Union  Move- 
ment of  the  Nineteenth  Century. 

ALEXANDER  CAMPBELL     ....  25 
Prophet  and  Leader  of  the  Reformation 
Movement. 

BARTON  W.  STONE  42 

Prophet  of  Evangelism  and  Piety  in  the 
Reformation  iMovement. 

WALTER  SCOTT  59 

Masterful  Preacher  and  Teacher. 

ISAAC    ERRETT  77 

Major  Prophet  of  the  Second  Generation 
of  Disciples. 

MOSES  E. 'lard  95 

Prophet  of  Radicalism,  Literalism  and 
Conservatism  in  the  Second  Generation  of 
the  Reformation,  Movement. 

WINTHiiOP  H.  HOPSON  AND  GEORGE 

W.^LONGAN  116 

Two  Representative  Types  of  Leadership 
in  the  Middle  Period  of  Our  History. 

JOHN  W.  llcGARVEY  AND  ALEXANDER 

^PROCTER  136 

Two  Representatives  of  Conservative  and 
Progressive  Leadership. 

THE   REFORMATION   MOVEMENT  UP 

TO  DATE  159 


MAKERS  AND  MOLDERS 

OF  THE 
REFORMATION  MOVEMENT 


THOMAS  CAMPBELL 


Creative  Personality  of  the  Union  Movement 
of  the  Nineteenth  Century 


HEN  a  religion  comes  into  the  world 


VV  with  vitality  enough  to  survive  in  the 
struggle  for  existence,  four  things  happen  in 
the  working  out  of  its  problems  : 

First,  a  supreme  creative  personality  ap- 
pears, who,  passing  the  truth  through  the 
alymbic  of  his  genius,  molds  it  into  a  vital  and 
consistent  whole.  A  second  personality,  one 
or  more,  but  little  inferior  to  the  first,  comes 
after  the  founder,  a  man  of  interpretative 
genius,  who  interprets  and  mediates  the  truth 
in  the  application  of  its  principles  to  life.  Crea- 
tion and  interpretation  call  for  a  third  man  or 
men  in  the  supreme  order,  call  for  a  man  of 
constructive  ability,  architectonic  power,  a 
builder  who  organizes  the  religion  into  a  sys- 
tem and  the  church  into  methods,  forms,  and 
an  order  of  administration.  It  is  in  this  period 
of  organization  that  the  ecclesiastic,  the  priest 
and  creed  maker  get  in  their  oars.  Inspiration 
is  succeeded  by  convention,  the  spirit  by  the 


12  MAKERS  AND  MOLDBRS  OF 


letter,  and  things  drop  to  a  lower  level.  The 
lofty  ideals  of  the  founder  and  his  first  inter- 
preters are  blurred,  confused  and  lost.  Cor- 
ruption and  stagnation  come  in  like  a  flood. 
This  is  the  reformer's  opportunity,  and  refor- 
mation, necessitated  by  conditions,  runs  along 
historic  lines  similar  to  those  of  the  original 
faith  itself. 

Moses  was  the  creative  personality  of  Ju- 
daism, the  great  prophets  were  his  interpre- 
ters. Ezra  and  Nehemiah  organized  the  law 
into  Leviticism.  During  the  exile  and  after 
the  restoration,  the  Divine  Legation  of  Moses 
was  organized  into  later  Judaism,  an  inferior 
product  of  ecclesiasticism  and  priestcraft. 
Dead  consciences,  lowered  moral  standards, 
corruption  in  faith  and  life,  formalism,  hypoc- 
risy and  shallowness ;  no  open  vision,  no  in- 
spired prophet  to  correct  abuses  till  John  the 
Reformer  appears  in  the  wilderness,  calling 
upon  the  people  to  hark  back  to  the  founder 
and  his  first  interpreters.  "Prepare  ye  the  way 
of  the  Lord,  make  his  paths  straight." 

Pour  Periods  of  Religious  History 

Jesus  of  Nazareth  was  the  creative  person- 
ality of  Christianity,  John  and  Paul  were  his 
first  great  interpreters,  the  Greek  period 
organized  theology  and  the  Roman  period  or- 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  13 


ganized  the  church.  Organization  was  the 
straight  way  to  crystallization,  life  and  passion 
went  out,  corruption  and  tradition  came  in. 
Theological  degradation,  ecclesiastical  prosti- 
tution, creed  making,  sect  building,  low  grade 
morals  in  the  life  of  the  church,  and  the  dark 
ages  came  on  for  a  thousand  years.  Prophet 
reformers  arose  who  felt  the  darkness  and  saw 
the  light:  Savonarola  in  Italy,  Huss  in  Bohe- 
mia, Tyndall  in  England,  Layfevre  in  France, 
Luther  in  Germany.  The  dawn  was  breaking, 
and  when  Luther  nailed  his  theses  to  the  door 
of  the  university  church  at  Wittenburg,  the 
Reformation  Ship  was  launched,  the  banner  of 
Apostolic  Christianity  was  flung  to  the  breeze. 

The  four  periods,  therefore,  through  which 
the  evolution  of  the  Christian  religion  has 
passed  have  been  the  creative,  the  interpreta- 
tive, the  constructive,  and  the  reformative — 
creation,  interpretation,  construction  and  ref- 
ormation. Reform  and  restoration  move- 
ments pass  through  similar  phases.  St.  Augus- 
tine was  the  creative,  originating  personality 
of  Calvinism,  John  Calvin  and  Jonathan  Ed- 
wards were  its  great  interpreters,  John  Knox 
was  the  organizing  genius  of  the  Calvinistic 
reformation. 


14  MAKERS  AND  MOLDERS  OF 


The  Creative  Personality  of  Our  Movement 

Thomas  Campbell,  author  of  the  Declaration 
and  Address,  and  founder  of  the  Christian  As- 
sociation of  Washington,  Pa.,  was  the  crea- 
tive personality  of  our  restoration  movement. 
Alexander,  his  son,  and  Isaac  Errett  of  the 
second  generation  of  Disciples,  were  his  great 
interpreters.  W e  are  now,  and  have  been  for 
thirty  years,  in  the  throes  of  the  constructive 
and  organizing  era  of  our  reformatory  ex- 
perience. In  the  absence  of  conspicuous  per- 
sonal leadership  in  this  branch  of  the  service, 
our  organizing  genius  has  yet  to  appear.  Most 
of  our  troubles  have  arisen,  and  are  likely  to 
continue  to  arise,  as  in  other  reforming  move- 
ments. As  Thomas  Campbell  was  the  Moses 
of  our  Restoration,  the  Declaration  and  Ad- 
dress was  the  Deuteronomy  of  our  prophetic 
reformation.  As  certainly  as  the  fifth  book  of 
Moses  contains  the  basic  principles  and  the 
whole  body  of  teaching  and  ideals  of  the 
prophets  that  inspired  and  entered  into  the 
structure  of  the  Deuteronomic  reformation  in 
Israel,  this  matchless  document,  whose  orig-in 
we  celebrated  four  years  ago,  embraces  every 
truth  we  have  taught,  every  principle  we  have 
advocated,  every  ideal  we  have  striven  to 
realize  in  the  hundred  years  of  our  existence. 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  15 


The  Declaration  and  Address 

Father  Campbell  was  the  originator.  The 
illustrious  son  was  the  advocate,  the  ex- 
pounder, the  defender,  the  illuminator,  the 
adaptor  of  the  teaching  of  his  father  in  the  con- 
stitution of  the  Christian  Association,  the  Ser- 
mon on  the  Mount  of  our  New  Testament,  if 
you  will  allow  me  to  change  the  figure  from  a 
discourse  of  Moses  in  the  Old  Testament  to 
a  discourse  of  Christ  in  the  New.  The  relation 
of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  to  the  kingdom  of 
God  is  the  relation  of  the  Declaration  and  Ad- 
dress to  our  religious  reformation.  The  effort 
that  has  been  made  to  trace  the  Christian 
unity  conception  and  emphasis  to  Thomas 
Campbell,  and  the  primitive  Christianity  idea 
as  the  basis  of  union,  to  Alexander  Campbell, 
and  to  make  the  two  stand  over  against  each 
other  as  variant  reforming  types,  has  not  been 
a  success.  The  fact  is,  the  two  conceptions,  as 
common  integers  of  New  Testament  Chris- 
tianity, were  emphatically  and  profusely 
taught  by  the  elder  Campbell  in  the  historic 
document  penned  a  hundred  years  ago  in 
Washington,  Pa.  I  have  been  amazed  at  the 
comprehensiveness  and  all-inclusiveness  of 
this  composition.  It  is  the  most  admirable 
summary  of  apostolic  Christianity  to  be  found 
in  the  literature  of  the  church  this  side  of  the 


16  MAKERS  AND  MOLDERS  OF 


New  Testament.  Even  from  the  point  of  view 
of  modern  criticism,  which  has  claimed  so 
many  new  discoveries,  we  are  chagrined  to 
find  that  Father  Campbell  has  stolen  all  our 
good  ideas.  The  unification  of  Christendom 
on  the  basis  of  the  apostolic  faith  in  Jesus 
Christ,  the  restoration  of  the  church  with  its 
divine  equipment  for  human  service,  '"the 
union  of  all  who  love  in  the  service  of  all  who 
sufler,"  the  purification  and  elevation  of 
morals  to  make  way  for  the  building  of  char- 
acter after  the  likeness  of  Christ,  opposition 
to  a  fake  mysticism  in  conversion,  and  all 
divisive  and  corrupting  instruments,  such  as 
human  creeds  and  an  ignorant  ministry ;  these 
and  all  other  essential  and  vital  things  that 
pertain  to  the  kingdom  of  God  and  the  name  of 
Jesus  Christ  are  distinctly  and  explicitly 
taught,  so  that  we  have  preached  nothing  the 
last  hundred  years,  and  will  preach  nothing  in 
the  oncoming  centuries,  not  advanced,  or  at 
least  suggested,  in  this  magna  charta  of  our 
restoration  movement. 

European  Sources  of  Reformation  Movement 

I  am  not  saying  these  things,  of  course,  in 
ignorance  of  the  fact  that  many  of  the  root 
principles  of  the  restoration  can  be  traced  to 
European  soil.  Both  of  the  Campbells  were  of 
European  birth  and  education,  and  there  was 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  17 


much  in  religious  training  and  social  environ- 
ment to  suggest  the  need  of  reformation,  and  a 
cue  to  their  future  work.  When  Thomas 
Campbell  set  sail  for  the  United  States,  in 
1807,  a  revolt  against  Calvinism^  and  hair- 
brained  mysticism  had  gained  a  foothold  in 
Scotland.  More  than  one  harbinger  had  arisen 
in  the  wilderness  of  sectarianism  to  restore  the 
tabernacle  of  the  Lord  that  had  fallen  down. 
John  Glass  and  his  son-in-law,  Sandeman ;  the 
Haldane  Brothers,  and  Greville  Ewell,  of  Glas- 
gow, were  striking  powerful  blows  at  Calvin- 
istic  theology,  the  corrupt  condition  of  re- 
ligious society,  and  the  divided  state  of  the 
church.  Successive  attempts  at  reformation 
since  Luther  had  culminated  in  a  new  effort, 
at  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century,  to 
•get  back  to  Christ  and  the  apostles.  These 
efforts,  however,  were  tentative  and  partial, 
and  short-lived  for  lack  of  genius  and  person- 
ality in  leadership.  They  were  quite  success- 
ful in  their  diagnosis  of  the  situation,  which 
called  aloud  for  the  restoration  of  the  ancient 
order  of  things,  and  the  remedies  suggested 
were  adequate  to  meet  the  needs  of  the  case, 
the  moment  was  imminent,  but  the  man  did 
not  appear.  He  had  emigrated  to  the  United 
States.  The  field  of  a  great  apostolic  restora- 
tion movement    had  been    transferred  from 


18  MAKERS  AND  HOLDERS  OF 


Scotland  to  North  America;  from  the  Old 
World  to  the  New. 

People  not  acquainted  with  the  subject  are 
surprised  to  find  in  the  books  of  Glass  and 
Sandeman,  the  Haldanes  and  Dr.  Kirk,  ideas, 
arguments,  doctrines,  and  even  phrases,  that 
our  reformation  has  made  familiar  to  the  world. 
These  men  did  not  fail  to  grasp  the  truth,  and 
to  realize  the  contrast  between  what  they  saw 
and  what  Christ  intended ;  but  they  lacked  the 
power  and  the  opportunity  to  incarnate  these 
principles  in  a  personality  strong  enough  in 
creative  and  adaptive  genius  to  make  the 
movement  go  in  the  face  of  old  world  difficul- 
ties. It  was  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic  that 
the  man  and  the  moment  came  together. 

The  Man  and  the  Opportunity 

When  the  Campbells  set  foot  on  American 
soil,  they  found  the  situation  worse,  the  cir- 
cumstances of  contending  sects  calling  more 
loudly  for  reform,  than  in  the  old  world.  They 
found  more  dogmatism,  a  fiercer  sectarianism, 
a  more  intense  fanaticism,  a  wilder  mysticism, 
a  narrower,  harder,  and  less  tractable  denom- 
inationalism  than  they  had  left  behind  them 
in  Europe.  If  the  people  were  not  hateful, 
they  certainly  hated  one  another.  Thomas 
Campbell  tells  of  a  seceder  divine  who  was  so 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  19 


intensely  human  that  he  exhorted  his  congre- 
gation :  "I  beseech  you,  my  brethren,  to  hate  all 
other  denominations,  especially  the  Catholics." 
An  age  of  increasing  sects,  multiplying  creeds, 
contending  parties,  and  warring  zealots,  had 
reached  the  stage  where  reaction  must  begin 
to  rally  the  forces  of  reformation.  The  time 
had  come  to  knock  down  the  Dagons  of  the- 
ology in  the  temple  of  sectarianism,  and  to  call 
back  a  divided  church  from  the  wilderness  of 
strife  and  bitterness  to  the  unity  of  the  Spirit 
in  the  bond  of  peace. 

The  American  Church  in  the  Nineteenth  Century 

Three  things  had  happened  to  bring  about 
this  ecclesiastical  reign  of  terror:  First,  the 
Bible  had  been  lost  in  the  church ;  second, 
Christ  had  been  lost  in  the  Bible;  third,  the 
church  had  been  lost  in  the  world.  The  first 
thing  a  corrupt  church  does  is  to  lose  its  Bible, 
and  the  Bible  is  never  lost  in  but  one  place, 
and  that  is  in  the  temple.  The  first  thing  a  re- 
stored church  does  is  to  find  the  Book  and  put 
it  in  the  place  where  it  belongs.  The  greatest 
spiritual  reformation  in  Israel  synchronized 
with  the  discovery  of  the  book  of  Deuter- 
onomy in  the  Temple,  where  it  had  been  lost 
during  the  reign  of  corrupt  Manasseh.  John 
the  Harbinger  launched  his    revolution  by  a 


20 


MAKERS  AND  MOLDERS  OF 


rediscovery  of  the  Book  of  the  Law  and  the 
Prophets  in  the  same  old  place  of  hiding,  the 
Temple  in  Jerusalem.  In  the  Reformation  of 
the  sixteenth  century,  Martin  Luther  found 
the  Holy  Scriptures  buried  in  a  dead  language, 
and  a  Standard  Bible  chained  to  the  lectern  of 
a  Holy  Catholic  Church.  The  Book  had  to  be 
liberated  from  its  temple  prison,  and  a  transla- 
tion of  it  made  into  the  common  vernacular  be- 
fore reformation  truth  could  find  a  place  in  the 
consciousness  of  the  people. 

Back  to  the  "Book  of  Books" 

The  new  religious  freedom  that  came  in 
with  Luther  had  its  evil  side.  The  abuse  of 
liberty  brought  in  the  era  of  sectarianism  and 
denominationalism.  Two  hundred  years  of 
warring  creeds  and  bellicose  denominations, 
and  history  repeats  itself.  The  Bible  is  again 
lost  in  a  superincumbent  mass  of  ignorance 
and  superstition  and  pharisaism,  and  the  fate 
of  the  Bible  is  always  the  fate  of  Christ  and 
the  church.  Necessarily,  therefore,  the  first 
characteristic  of  our  restoration  movement 
was  the  rediscovery  of  the  Holy  Scriptures. 
The  assertion  of  the  authority  of  the  divine 
Word  and  its  all-sufficiency  as  a  rule  of  faith 
and  practice  was  the  first  step  towards  realiz- 
ing the  need  of  reform.   "Where  the  Scriptures 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  21 


speak  we  speak,  and  where  the  Scriptures  are 
silent  we  are  silent."  The  life  and  power  of 
every  forward  movement  in  the  history  of  or- 
ganized Christianity  is  a  fresh  and  vital  re-in- 
terpretation of  the  Bible  and  a  new  application 
of  its  principles  to  the  life  of  the  church.  And 
this,  of  necessity,  leads  straight  to  the  redis- 
covery of  Christ,  and  his  installation  on  the 
throne  of  universal  empire  and  Lordship,  fol- 
lowed by  the  restoration  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment church.  Mr.  Campbell  was  quick  to  see 
that  any  effective  appeal  to  the  conscience  of 
the  Christian  world  must  involve  a  fresh  and 
living  interpretation  of  Holy  Scripture,  a  vital 
and  loyal  recognition  of  Christ  as  Prophet, 
Priest,  and  King,  as  Saviour  and  Lord  of  all, 
and  an  earnest  efifort  towards  the  realization 
of  the  ideals  of  the  apostolic  church,  before  it 
was  possible  for  the  Saviour's  intercessory 
prayer  to  be  answered — "that  they  all  may  be 
one,"  as  He  and  the  Father  are  one.  The  plea 
was  for  the  unity,  purity,  spirituality,  and 
catholicity  of  the  New  Testament  church, 
fresh  from  the  hands  of  Christ,  and  guided  by 
the  Holy  Spirit  in  the  apostles.  A  careful 
analysis  of  the  Declaration  and  Address  will 
show  that  this  plea  for  unity  was  simple,  scrip- 
tural and  catholic,  an  appeal  to  the  conscience 
of  the  universal  church. 


22 


MAKERS  AND  MOLDERS  OF 


Catholicity  of  Our  Plea 

1.  The  catholic  creed  of  Christendom,  "I 
believe  that  Jesus  is  the  Christ,  the  Son  of  the 
living  God,  the  Saviour  and  Lord  of  Men." 

2.  The  catholic  rule  of  faith  and  practice, 
the  Word  of  God,  written  in  the  Old  and  New 
Testaments. 

3.  The  catholic  ordinances,  baptism  and  the 
Lord's  Supper. 

4.  The  catholic  name.  Christian. 

5.  The  catholic  life,  the  ethics  of  the  king- 
dom of  God,  "Whatsoever  things  are  true, 
whatsoever  things  are  honest,  whatsoever 
things  are  just,  whatsoever  things  are  pure, 
whatsoever  things  are  lovely,  of  good  report, 
if  there  be  any  virture.  if  there  be  any  praise, 
think  on  these  things." 

This  plea  is  reasonable,  feasible,  beautiful, 
and,  in  time,  must  become  universal.  The 
spiritual  movement  originated  and  consecrated 
in  the  manner  I  have  endeavored  to  describe, 
and  brought  forth  on  this  new  American  con- 
tinent in  the  last  hundred  years,  is  not  a  refor- 
mation of  existing  institutions  in  the  ordinary 
sense  of  that  term,  nor  a  restoration  of  primi- 
tive Christianity  in  the  sense  of  literally  re- 
storing the  historic  apostolic  church.  It  is  a 
realization  movement  whose  aim  and  purpose 
is   to  realize  the   ideals   of   New  Testament 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  23 


Christianity  in  the  life  of  these  modern  cen- 
turies. It  was  found  not  possible  to  reform 
existing  religious  institutions,  nor  to  restore 
the  primitive  church  by  transferring  it  literally 
and  bodily  to  the  nineteenth  century,  but  it 
was  possible  and  eminently  desirable  to  make 
an  honest  efifort  to  realize  the  ideals  of  the 
apostolic  faith  that  shine  and  make  their  ap- 
peal from  every  page  of  the  inspired  record. 

The  Peculiar  Glory  of  "The  Reformation" 

This  feature  differentiates  the  movement 
inaugurated  by  Thomas  Campbell  from  all  of 
the  mere  reformations  in  the  history  of  the 
church.  The  old  reformations  would  need  to 
be  repeated  through  successive  generations  till 
the  end  of  time ;  but  what  we  have  chosen  to 
call  "the  current  reformation,"  if  rightly  under- 
stood, forever  remains  current,  because  it  em- 
bodies a  principle  that  makes  crystallization 
forever  impossible  and  growth  forever  neces- 
sary. So  long  as  we  strive  to  actualize  the 
originals,  to  realize  the  ideals  of  the  inspired 
Christianity  of  the  New  Testament,  we  safe- 
guard our  religion  from  stagnation,  open  the 
road  to  perpetual  progress,  and  thus  forestall 
the  necessity  of  further  efforts  at  reformation. 
This  is  the  peculiarity  and  glory  of  our  great 
religious  movement,  and  if,  under  God,  we  are 


24 


MAKERS  AND  MOLDERS  OF 


faithful  to  the  charge  committed  to  our  care, 
we  shall  contribute  our  share  and  more  to  the 
bringing  in  of  that  far-off  divine  event  to  which 
the  whole  creation  moves,  when  they  shall  not 
teach  every  man  his  neighbor,  and  every  man 
his  brother,  saying,  "Know  the  Lord,  for  all 
shall  know  him,  from  the  least  to  the  greatest 
cf  these." 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  25 


ALEXANDER  CAMPBELL 
Vrophei  and  Leader  of  the  Reformation 


LEXANDER  CAMPBELL  was  in  the 


JTx.  twenty-first  year  of  his  age  when  he 
joined  his  distinguished  father  in  Washington, 
Pa.  Thomas  Campbell  had  preceded  his 
family  by  two  years,  coming  to  these  shores 
from  the  old  world  in  1807.  His  family,  es- 
saying to  follow  him  a  year  later,  were  ship- 
wrecked off  the  coast  of  Scotland  and  were 
compelled  to  return  to  the  old  country,  where 
they  remained  a  year  before  again  setting  sail. 
This  calamity  and  subsequent  detention 
turned  out  to  be  a  providence,  as  far  as  the 
future  of  young  Alexander  and  the  reformation 
he  was  destined  to  lead,  were  concerned.  The 
opportunity  which  it  gave  him  of  three  hun- 
dred days'  study  in  the  University  of  Glasgow, 
and  association  with  leaders  of  religious 
thought  in  Scotland,  was  joyfully  embraced, 
and  always  in  after  years  acknowledged  as 


Movement 


26 


MAKERS  AND  MOLDBRS  OF 


potential  in  its  influence  on  his  future  life  and 
work. 

The  previous  education  of  this  coming  re- 
former had  been  in  no  less  efficient  hands  than 
that  of  his  eminent  father.  In  the  days  of  his 
adolescent  youth  he  had  shown  a  marked  in- 
disposition to  study  and  all  indoor  confine- 
ment. A  stout  and  vigorous  lad,  overflowing 
with  animal  spirits  and  in  love  with  God's 
great  out-of-doors,  he  was  fond  of  fishing,  gun- 
ning, trapping  wild  animals,  and  wandering  in 
the  fields  of  his  native  heather.  Athletic  sports 
had  more  attraction  for  him  than  the  serious 
business  of  acquiring  an  education.  James 
Foster,  a  friend  of  the  family,  says  the  first 
time  he  saw  Alexander  Campbell,  a  boy  of 
fifteen  summers,  he  had  a  long  pole  in  his  hand 
with  a  net  attached  to  one  end  with  which  he 
was  catching  small  birds  under  the  eaves  of 
the  houses  in  the  outskirts  of  the  town. 

Like  Adam  Clark  in  his  youthful  days,  our 
nascent  genius  evinced  but  little  ambition  for 
the  acquisition  of  knowledge.  He  went  out 
under  a  shade  tree  one  day  to  croon  over  his 
French  lesson  in  "The  Adventures  of  Tele- 
machus."  A  warm  summer  day,  he  was  over- 
come by  the  spirit  of  drowsiness,  and  falling 
into  a  deep  slumber,  a  cow  came  along,  seized 
his  Telemachus  and  actually  devoured  it.  On 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  27 


reporting  the  disaster  at  home  his  father  ad- 
ministered a  sound  thrashing  and  told  him  by 
way  of  further  humiHation,  that  "the  cow  had 
more  French  in  her  stomach  than  he  had  in  his 
head,"  a  fact  too  obvious  to  be  easily  denied. 

This  love  of  sport  and  the  exuberance  of 
animal  vitality  in  the  activities  of  outdoor  life, 
tended  to  the  toughening  of  fiber  and  the  de- 
velopment of  a  powerful  physique  that  stood 
him  well  in  hand  in  the  strenuous  responsibili- 
ties and  labors  of  after  life.  It  was  not  long 
after  the  Telemachus  episode  till  the  physical 
energy  of  the  boy  began  to  transmute  itself 
into  the  intellectual  aptitudes  and  powers  of 
the  man.  John  Locke's  "Letters  on  Tolera- 
tion" and  his  "Essay  on  the  Human  Under- 
standing" were  the  first  books  that  made  a  pro- 
found and  lasting  impression  on  his  mind. 
These  books  of  the  English  philosopher,  in 
fact,  laid  the  foundation  of  Mr.  Campbell's 
theology  and  his  conception  of  religious  and 
civil  liberty.  The  association  of  father  and  son 
with  the  Rich  Hill  Independents,  who  were 
more  liberal  and  catholic  in  their  sympathies 
than  any  of  the  sects  of  Scotch  Presbyterian- 
ism,  had  much  to  do  with  the  initial  impulse  of 
reform  and  progress  in  their  minds. 


28 


MAKERS  AND  MOLDERS  OF 


Religious  Influences  of  His  Youth 

After  the  shipwreck  and  the  return  of  the 
family  to  Glasgow,  Alexander  was  brought 
into  connection  more  or  less  intimate  with  the 
Haldane  Brothers  and  their  new  Baptist  de- 
nomination. The  Haldanes  were  philanthro- 
pists and  reformers,  pleading  for  some  of  the 
principles  that  afterwards  characterized  the  ref- 
ormation of  the  Campbells.  The  Haldanean 
movement  in  Scotland  was  the  "immersion 
wing"  of  Sandemanianism,  which  terminated 
in  the  formation  of  the  Scotch  Baptists,  from 
which  the  Old  Disciples  in  Europe  borrowed 
their  ecclesiology,  in  such  practices  as  mutual 
edification  and  close  communion.  Sandeman 
himself  and  his  father-in-law.  Glass,  led  the 
Paedo-baptist  wing,  but  Alexander  Campbell 
never  accepted  the  Sandemanian  theology  in 
either  of  its  branches.  He  sympathized  with 
these  reformers  in  their  revolt  against  Calvin- 
ism, in  their  plea  for  religious  liberty,  the 
rights  of  conscience,  and  the  restoration  of  the 
New  Testament  interpretation  of  religion;  he 
differed  from  them  on  other  points  of  their 
contention.  He  listened  with  a  measure  of  ap- 
preciation to  the  conversations  and  sermons 
of  John  Walker,  the  founder  of  the  Plymouth 
Brethren,  but  never  at  any  time  was  he  even 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  29 


tinctured  with  the  peculiarities  of  "Brethren- 
ism." 

His  Entrance  into  His  Life  Task 

Providentially,  young  Campbell,  in  the  sus- 
ceptible and  formative  years  of  his  life,  was  so 
placed  and  environed  as  to  breathe  the  atmos- 
phere of  religious  revival  and  theological  re- 
form, by  way  of  education  and  preparation  for 
the  great  leadership  to  which  God  was  soon  to 
call  him.  When  God  raises  a  man  up  to  per- 
form a  great  task,  he  is  prepared  for  its  per- 
formance, and  the  preparatory  experience  in 
Scotland  was  the  preliminary  stage  in  the 
education  and  inspiration  of  a  prophet-re- 
former who  was  soon  to  take  his  place  as 
leader  of  one  of  the  great  religious  movements 
of  history.  The  man  and  the  movement  were 
about  to  coincide,  as  they  always  do  when  the 
hand  of  God  directs  the  conjunction.  The  man 
was  being  prepared  and  the  moment  was  ap- 
proaching. 

When  young  Campbell  reached  the  United 
States  and  joined  his  father  at  Washington, 
Pa.,  the  work  of  union  and  restoration  had  al- 
ready begun.  "The  Declaration  and  Address," 
the  constitution  of  the  Christian  Association 
just  organized,  was  passing  through  the  press. 
The  father  submitted  the  proof  sheets  to  his 


30 


MAKERS  AND  MOLDERS  OF 


son,  who  read  them  with  sympathetic  interest 
and  profound  approval.  He  lost  no  time  in 
expressing  his  determination  to  spend  his  life 
in  the  advocacy  and  dissemination  of  the 
principles  so  ably  set  forth  in  that  immortal 
document.  The  sole  object  of  Thomas  Camp- 
bell in  organizing  the  society  known  as  the 
Christian  Association  of  Washington  was  the 
inculcation  of  pure  evangelical  religion  and  the 
promotion  of  Christian  unity.  The  construc- 
tive genius  of  Alexander  Campbell  led  him  not 
only  to  clear  the  ground  for  the  unification  of 
Christendom  by  the  destruction  of  sectarian- 
ism and  human  creeds  that  made  the  separat- 
ing walls  between  the  churches,  but  he  sought 
as  the  most  fundamental  thing,  a  basis  of 
union,  the  foundation  of  the  reconstituted  uni- 
versal church  of  the  Apostolic  age.  It  had 
been  learned  by  experience  and  perceived,  at 
a  glance,  by  observation  that  the  viperous  in- 
tolerance and  bigotry  of  sectarianism,  and  the 
tweedledum  and  tweedledee  differences  of 
opinion  between  warring  denominations,  were 
the  great  hindrances  to  the  unity  among  his 
disciples  for  which  the  Saviour  prayed.  It  was 
this  consideration  that  led  to  the  war  on 
human  creeds  and  opinionism  by  the  Camp- 
bells and  their  coadjutors.  It  was  perceived 
that  these  human  formularies  stopped  growth, 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  31 


hindered  progress,  made  men  dishonest,  and 
ministered  everywhere  to  theological  crystal- 
lization fatal  to  the  unity  of  the  spirit  in  the 
bond  of  peace. 

Divine  and  Man-made  Creeds 

Beginning,  as  they  did,  with  the  presupposi- 
tion that  the  Bible  of  the  Old  and  New  Testa- 
ments was  the  Word  of  God  and  the  only  law 
of  faith  and  practice  among  Christians,  they 
reasoned,  if  a  human  creed  contains  more  than 
the  Bible  it  contains  too  much,  if  it  contains 
less  than  the  Bible  it  contains  too  little;  if  it 
contains  anything  different  from  the  Bible  it 
is  wrong;  if  it  contains  nothing  more  and 
nothing  less  and  nothing  different  from  the 
Bible,  it  is  not  a  human  creed  but  the  Bible 
itself,  the  only  inspired  and  all-sufficient  rule 
of  faith  and  morals. 

As  remarked  in  the  article  on  Thomas 
Campbell,  all  religious  reformations  in  any 
way  related  to  the  history  of  Christianity,  be- 
gin, not  with  the  discovery  of  a  new  Bible,  but 
the  re-discovery  of  the  old  one.  All  progres- 
sive and  really  effective  movements  within  the 
sphere  of  the  Christian  faith  must  begin  with 
a  fresh  and  vital  interpretation  of  holy  Scrip- 
ture. It  was  the  consciousness  of  this  fact  that 
led  Alexander  Campbell  at  the  beginning  to 


32 


MAKERS  AXD  MOLDERS  OF 


honestly  and  fearlessly  re-examine  his  re- 
ligious position  in  the  light  of  the  inspired 
teaching  of  Christ  and  the  apostles.  In  line 
with  this  conviction  and  while  pursuing  a  de 
novo  investigation  of  his  Greek  New  Testa- 
ment, the  fact,  in  the  face  of  all  his  prejudices, 
and  pre-conceived  opinions,  dawned  upon  him 
that  immersion  was  the  form  of  baptism  com- 
manded by  Christ  and  practiced  by  his  first 
disciples. 

Magnificent  Loyalty  to  the  Word  of  God 

It  has  been  impossible  from  the  first  for  any 
man  to  rightly  understand  or  properh^  appraise 
the  reformation  inaugurated  by  the  Campbells 
w-ithout  taking  into  account  their  magnificent 
loyalty  to  the  Word  of  God,  and  its  relation  to 
these  men  and  their  teaching.  The  now- 
familiar  utterance  of  the  Declaration  and  Ad- 
dress. "\\'here  the  Bible  speaks  we  speak,  and 
where  the  Bible  is  silent  we  are  silent,"  pro- 
voked the  remark  from  Alexander  to  his 
father.  "If  you  carry  that  out  it  will  put  an 
end  to  infant  baptism."  The  inspired  Word 
is  the  source  of  religious  knowledge,  the  chan- 
nel of  divine  authority,  and  the  means  of 
spiritual  edification,  and  because  infant  bap- 
tism is  not  taught  therein,  it  must  not  be 
practiced  or  tolerated  in  the  church  of  Jesus 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  33 


Christ.  The  immersion  of  penitent  believers 
into  the  name  of  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the 
Holy  Spirit,  for  the  remission  of  sins,  is  plain- 
ly taught  in  the  Scriptures,  therefore  the 
Campbells  were  immersed,  and  all  who  fol- 
lowed them  into  the  union  movement  of  the 
current  reformation.  Nothing  is  to  enter  into 
the  program  of  preaching  and  practice  not 
definitely  authorized  by  the  Word  of  God,  in 
positive  command,  necessary  inference,  or  ap- 
proved example.  On  these  ancient  Scriptures, 
inspired  by  the  Holy  Ghost,  Jesus  of  Nazareth 
is  enthroned  as  divine  Saviour  and  Lord  of  all, 
the  foundation  of  the  church,  the  object  of 
Christian  faith,  and  the  inspiration  of  Chris- 
tian character. 

The  Substance  of  Mr.  Campbell's  Plea 

The  scattered  and  warring  fragments  of 
Christendom  can  only  be  gathered  together 
on  the  basis  of  one  Lord,  one  faith,  one  bap- 
tism, one  body,  one  spirit,  one  hope  of  the 
divine  calling,  declared  by  the  apostle  Paul  in 
his  letter  to  the  Ephesians.  The  existing  church 
could  not  be  reconstructed  out  of  the  old  ma- 
terial of  human  opinions  and  dogmatic  specu- 
lations, but  the  New  Testament  message  and 
order  of  life  could  be  restored  by  an  honest 


34  MAKERS  AND  MOLDERS  OF 


effort  to  realize  apostolic  ideals  in  the  life  of 
today. 

This  in  substance  was  Mr.  Campbell's  plea 
for  the  ancient  gospel  and  the  restoration  of 
the  Word  to  its  rightful  place  as  teacher  of 
God  and  righteousness,  the  personality  of 
Jesus  Christ  which  the  Bible  records,  and  dis- 
closes the  way,  the  truth,  and  the  life,  the  un- 
changed and  unchangeable  basis  of  unity 
among  the  people  of  God,  which  unity  was 
necessary  to  the  conversion  of  the  world,  and 
the  coming  in  of  the  kingdom. 

Making  the  Word  Clear  and  Simple 

The  new  quest  for  truth  and  righteousness 
on  the  pages  of  that  Divine  Library,  known  as 
ha  Biblos  (The  Book),  naturally  led  the  Camp- 
bells to  stress  the  importance  of  the  applica- 
tion of  sane,  practical,  and  common-sense  rules 
of  interpretation  to  the  sacred  writings,  writ- 
ten under  circumstances  so  different  from  the 
ones  under  which  we  now  live.  The  canons  of 
historical  and  literary  criticism  made  familiar 
by  recent  Biblical  studies  were  thought  out 
and  used  by  this  illuminating  interpreter  of  the 
Holy  Scriptures.  No  interpretation  of  the 
Bible  has  come  to  us  more  intelligent  and  in- 
telligible, more  perspicacious  and  luminous, 
more  stimulating  and    suggestive    than  that 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  35 


which  bears  the  imprimatur  of  the  genius  of 
Alexander  Campbell.  "Intellectuals"  and  the 
best  informed  among  his  contemporaries  ex- 
pressed their  amazement  at  the  flood  of  light 
thrown  by  his  writings  and  sermons  on  the 
pages  of  God's  Bible. 
A  Sermon  that  Told 

Raccoon  John  Smith,  a  born  wit  and  man  of 
genius,  who  became  a  mighty  preacher  of  the 
ancient  gospel,  tells  of  the  first  sermon  he 
heard  Alexander  Campbell  preach : 

"He  commenced  in  the  usual  way,  and  read 
the  allegory  of  Sarah  and  Hagar  in  the  fourth 
chapter  of  Galatians.  After  a  general  outline 
of  the  whole  epistle,  and  how  it  ought  to  be 
read,  in  order  to  a  correct  understanding  of  the 
apostle's  meaning,  he  commenced  directly  on 
the  allegory.  I  watched  all  the  time  with  my 
whole  mind  to  find  out  to  what  'ism'  he  be- 
longed, but  he  seemed  to  move  in  a  higher 
sphere  than  that  in  which  these  'isms' 
abounded.  In  a  simple,  plain  and  artless  man- 
ner, leaning  with  one  hand  on  the  head  of  his 
cane,  he  went  through  his  discourse.  No  ges- 
ture or  any  kind  of  mannerism  characterized 
him,  or  served  to  call  ofif  the  mind  from  what 
was  being  said. 

"The  congregation  being  dismissed,  I  said  to 
Brother    Vaughan,  'Is  it  not  a  little  hard  to 


36 


MAKERS  AND  MOLDERS  OF 


ride  thirty  miles  to  hear  a  man  preach  thirty 
minutes?' 

"  'Oh,'  said  he,  'he  has  been  longer  than  that. 
Look  at  your  watch.' 

"On  looking,  I  found  it  had  been  two  hours 
and  thirty  minutes,  and  simply  said,  'Two 
hours  of  my  time  are  gone  and  I  know  not 
how,  though  wide-awake.' 

"Returning  to  Brother  Reynolds,  Brother 
Vaughan  asked  me,  'Did  you  find  out  whether 
he  was  a  Calvinist  or  an  Arminian?' 

"  'No,  I  know  nothing  about  him,  but,  be  he 
devil  or  saint,  he  has  thrown  more  light  on 
that  epistle  and  the  whole  Scriptures  than  I 
have  heard  in  all  the  sermons  I  ever  listened  to 
before.' " 

Dr.  Richardson,  in  his  Memoirs  of  Alexan- 
der Campbell,  said  of  T.  M.  Allen,  an  eminent 
preacher  who  came  into  the  reformation  from 
the  Stone  movement  in  Kentucky :  "He  had 
obtained  the  'Chris-Baptist'  soon  after  it  com- 
menced, and  was  delighted  with  its  develop- 
ment of  the  simple  nature  of  the  religion  of 
Christ,  its  distinctions  between  dispensations, 
and  the  new  light  which  it  threw  upon  the 
themes  of  the  Bible.  He  quickly  abandoned 
all  the  speculations  for  which,  with  others,  he 
had  been  contending,  and  accustomed  himself 
to  speak  always  of  Bible  things  in  Bible  words." 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  37 


Rightly  Dividing  the  IV ord 

Perhaps  the  most  important  contribution 
Mr.  Campbell  made  to  Biblical  interpretation 
and  theology,  was  the  insistence  on  dispensa- 
tional  distinctions.  With  great  clearness  and 
cogency  he  traced  the  evolution  of  religion 
through  its  well-marked  stages  which  he 
characterized  as  the  starlight,  moonlight,  and 
sunlight  dispensations  of  revelation,  running 
from  Adam  through  the  Patriarchs,  prophets, 
and  the  Jewish  economies,  to  its  culmination 
in  Christ,  the  Light  of  the  World.  These  dis- 
tinctions enabled  him  to  make  a  rational  and 
practical  division  and  application  of  the  Word. 

The  prophets,  priests  and  sages  of  the  Old 
Testament  prepare  us  for  the  advent  of  the 
world's  Redeemer;  the  four  historic  memori- 
als, Matthew,  Mark,  Luke  and  John,  were  writ- 
ten to  convince  mankind  that  Jesus  of  Nazareth 
was  the  Messiah,  the  Christ,  the  Son  of  God; 
the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  indited  as  records  of 
the  ministry  of  the  Holy  Spirit  through  the 
apostles,  the  conversion  of  sinners  under  the 
Great  Commission,  and  the  organization  of 
Christian  churches;  the  apostolic  epistles  were 
sent  out  as  manuals  of  instruction  on  how  to 
live  the  Christian  life ;  the  apocalypse  of  St. 
John,    the  last  book    in  the    canon    of  Holy 


38  MAKERS  AND  HOLDERS  OF 


Scripture,  communicated  to  the  churches  a 
prophetic  vision  of  the  struggles  of  the  King- 
dom against  paganism  and  its  final  triumph 
over  the  powers  of  darkness,  when  the  will  of 
God  will  be  done  on  earth  as  it  is  in  heaven. 
The  Gospels  tell  us  what  to  believe  in  order  to 
become  Christians ;  the  Acts  of  Apostles  what 
to  do ;  the  epistles  what  to  be ;  Revelations 
what  to  hope  for  in  the  far-off  divine  event  to 
which  the  whole  creation  moves. 

By  thus  rightly  dividing  the  Word  of  Truth 
men  were  saved  from  the  ignorant  folly  of 
searching  in  Ecclesiastes  and  the  Song  of 
Songs  for  the  message  of  salvation  through 
Jesus  Christ,  or  ransacking  Leviticus  and 
Numbers  to  find  an  answer  to  the  question : 
"What  must  I  do  to  be  saved?" 

Reaction  against  Mysticism 

In  the  violent  reaction  against  mysticism 
and  emotional  sectarianism,  Alexander  Camp- 
bell, especially  in  the  early  day  of  his  reform 
experiences,  went  a  little  too  far  in  the  direc- 
tion of  legalism.  This  was  inevitable  and  to  a 
degree  wholesome.  Historically  considered, 
there  were  two  Alexander  Campbells  as  dis- 
tinct in  individuality  as  two  diflFerent  persons. 
There  was  the  aggressively  radical  Alexander 
Campbell  No.  1  of  the  Christian  Baptist  and 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  39 


the  Third  Epistle  of  Peter;  and  the  more 
catholic  and  spiritual  Alexander  Campbell  No. 
2  of  the  Millennial  Harbinger  and  the  Lunen- 
burg letter.  The  early  radicalism  and  legalism 
of  the  reformer  was  the  dogmatic  and  polemic 
era  of  the  Restoration  movement.  Both  of  the 
Campbells  started  out  in  the  firm  belief  that 
religious  controversy  w^as  inimical  to  spiritual- 
ity and  a  thing  not  to  be  participated  in  or  en- 
couraged. It  was  an  age  of  theological  war- 
fare, polemic  strife,  a  time  of  what  the  old 
colored  man  called  "spute,"  and  the  well-meant 
resolution  of  abstention  from  public  discussion 
had  to  be  changed.  In  self-defense  and  in 
vindication  of  truth  and  justice,  the  armor  had 
to  be  put  on,  and  Mr.  Campbell  put  it  on  with 
tremendous  effect.  His  argumentative  power 
and  dialectic  skill  astonished  all  who  heard 
him  in  debate. 

Rare  Argumentative  Power 

The  story  told  by  Bishop  Jeremiah  Varde- 
man,  a  distinguished  Baptist  minister,  who  had 
been  chosen  as  Mr.  Campbell's  moderator  in 
the  debate  with  McCalla,  illustrates  Mr.  Camp- 
bell's renown  as  a  disputant  before  any  of  his 
great  debates  had  been  held.  Mr.  Vardeman, 
on  his  way  to  attend  the  debate  at  Washing- 
ton, Ky.,  overtook  a  man  on  foot.   He  accosted 


40  MAKERS  AND  MOLDERS  OP 


the  stranger  and,  in  good  old  Kentucky  style, 
asked  him  where  he  was  going.  The  man 
answered  that  he  was  on  the  way  to  Washing- 
ton to  attend  the  debate  to  commence  there  on 
the  15th  of  the  month.  Taking  this  traveler 
on  the  ankle-bone  express  to  be  a  zealous 
Baptist,  Vardeman  affected  to  be  on  the  other 
side,  and  said,  "Is  not  our  man  likely  to  whip 
your  man  Campbell?"  The  man  gave  him  a 
searching  look  and  asked:  "Can  you  tell  me 
if  this  is  the  same  Mr.  Campbell  who  debated 
with  Mr.  Walker  at  Mt.  Pleasant,  Ohio?" 
Elder  Vardeman  said  he  believed  he  was,  to 
which  the  stranger  replied :  "I  am  not  a  mem- 
ber of  any  church.  I  am  going  to  the  debate 
on  the  supposition  that  this  is  the  Mr.  Camp- 
bell who  debated  at  Mt.  Pleasant  three  years 
ago.  I  heard  that  debate,  and  all  I  have  to 
say  is,  that  all  creation  cannot  whip  that  Mr. 
Campbell." 

The  twelve-hour  speech  in  the  debate  with 
Robert  Owen  was  a  supreme  masterpiece  of 
sacred  eloquence  and  argumentation.  As  an 
apologetic  in  defense  and  vindication  of  the 
Christian  religion  it  has  never  been  surpassed 
in  any  language.  The  debates  with  Presby- 
terian Rice  and  Roman  Catholic  Purcell  were 
monumental  triumphs  of  argumentative  genius 
against    the    strongest    men  who    could  be 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  41 


brought  into  the  field  against  him.  These  dis- 
cussions and  frequent  preaching  excursions 
into  the  various  states  of  the  Union,  together 
with  the  publication  of  many  books  and  his 
two  great  periodicals,  the  Christian  Baptist 
and  the  Millennial  Harbinger,  gave  Mr.  Camp- 
bell ample  opportunities  for  the  presentation 
of  his  interpretation  of  Christianity,  and  very 
abundant  have  been  the  fruits  that  have  fol- 
lowed these  efforts.  Mr.  Campbell's  theory  of 
the  fundamentals  of  Apostolic  Christianity  is 
his  basis  for  the  unification  of  the  broken 
church,  and  surely  no  better  basis  has  ever 
been  suggested,  for  it  is  nothing  more  and 
nothing  less  than  Jesus  Christ  as  the  New 
Testament  interprets  him. 


42 


MAKERS  AND  MOLDERS  OF 


BARTON  W.  STONE 

Trophet  of  Evangelism  and  Piety  in  the  Ref- 
ormation Movement 

FOUR  streams  of  religious  reconstruction 
broke  out  almost  simultaneously  in  as 
many  different  states  of  the  American  Union, 
springing  from  a  common  impulse  and  motive, 
but  having  no  organic  relation  to  each  other 
at  the  beginning. 

A  Southern  Movement 

A  Methodist  minister  by  the  name  of  James 
O'Kelly,  of  North  Carolina,  after  pleading  in 
vain,  within  the  ranks  of  the  Episcopal  Metho- 
dism, for  a  congregational  S3'stem  of  church 
government,  and  the  New  Testament  as  the 
only  creed  and  book  of  discipline,  formally 
seceded  from  the  Methodist  Church  in  Decem- 
ber, 1793. 

At  first  this  secession  reformation  was  called 
"Republican  Methodists,"  but  at  a  conference 
subsequently  held  O'Kelly  and  his  followers 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  43 


resolved  to  be  known  as  Christians  only,  to 
acknowledge  no  head  over  the  church  but 
Christ,  and  no  rule  of  faith  and  practice  but 
the  New  Testament.  The  spread  of  this  move- 
ment has  been  confined  almost  entirely  to 
North  Carolina  and  southern  Virginia,  where 
churches  of  this  faith  and  order  still  exist,  and 
are  known  as  "Christian  Churches." 

In  the  New  England  States 

The  second  stream  in  the  order  of  time 
broke  out  from  among  the  hills  of  Baptist  the- 
ology in  New  England.  A  physician  of  Hart- 
land,  Vermont,  then  a  member  of  a  Baptist 
church,  became  dissatisfied  with  sectarian 
names  and  creeds,  began  to  advocate  their 
abolition,  and  the  substitution  of  Christian 
character  as  the  ground  of  Christian  fellow- 
ship. In  September,  1800,  Mr.  Jones  succeeded 
in  establishing  his  first  church  with  25  mem- 
bers, at  Lyndon,  Vermont.  He  was  joined  by 
several  earnest  and  able  preachers,  who  car- 
ried the  flaming  torch  of  this  unique  reforma- 
tion into  several  adjoining  states.  Its  unique- 
ness consisted  in  the  astounding  fact  that, 
for  the  first  time  since  the  apostles,  churches 
were  being  formed  on  the  basis  of  spiritual 
character,  instead  of  intellectual  creed.  Those 
who  were  concerned  in  this  movement  took 


44 


MAKERS  AND  MOLDERS  OF 


the  name  Christian  as  their  ecclesiastical  and 
personal  designation,  and  adopted  the  Bible  as 
the  only  standard  of  faith  and  practice. 

The  Stone  Reformation  in  Kentucky 

According  to  the  chronology  of  events  in 
these  historic  movements,  the  Stone  reforma- 
tion comes  third,  dating  its  origin  from  the 
great  revival  in  1801  at  Caneridge,  Bourbon 
County,  Kentucky,  eight  years  earlier  than  the 
organization  of  the  Christian  Association  of 
Washington,  Pa.,  by  Thomas  Campbell.  In 
any  intelligent  investigation  of  these  refor- 
matory origins  and  influences  of  the  late 
eighteenth  and  early  nineteenth  centuries,  the 
personality  and  piety  of  Mr.  Stone  and  his 
contribution  to  the  religious  thought  and  feel- 
ing of  the  period,  are  by  no  means  to  be  over- 
looked or  underestimated. 

Barton  Stone's  Boyhood  Environment 

Barton  Stone  was  a  native  of  Marjiand,. 
born  December  24.  1772.  He  grew  to  early 
manhood  in  Virginia,  where  he  attained  great 
proficiency  in  his  studies,  and  early  mastered 
all  of  the  ordinary  branches  of  an  English  edu- 
cation. In  1790  he  entered  a  famous  academy 
in  Guilford,  North  Carolina,  for  the  purpose  of 
obtaining  a  liberal  education,  with  a  view  of 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  45 


engaging  in  the  legal  profession.  Great  wars 
are  generally  followed  by  great  revivals  of  re- 
ligion. After  the  close  of  the  Revolutionary 
War,  a  flame  of  revival  interests  swept 
through  the  country.  Thousands  were  con- 
verted and  hundreds  of  the  male  converts  en- 
tered the  ministry.  The  theological  war  be- 
tween Methodists  and  Baptists,  the  two  dom- 
inant sects  of  the  South,  created  perplexity  and 
doubt  in  the  mind  of  young  Stone.  He  wavered 
to  and  fro  between  the  contending  parties, 
till  his  religious  impressions  faded,  and  he 
settled  down  in  the  conviction  that  there  was 
nothing  in  religion  but  occasion  for  narrow- 
minded  people  to  quarrel. 

His  Varying  Religious  Experience 

In  the  meantime,  however,  a  wave  of  re- 
ligious enthusiasm  struck  the  town  of  Guil- 
ford ;  the  young  man's  religious  emotions 
came  back,  his  convictions  were  deepened,  he 
was  converted,  made  a  profession  of  religion 
and  joined  the  Presbyterian  Church.  In  his 
next  experience,  he  was  confronted  by  the 
problem  of  entering  the  ministry.  He  vacil- 
lated here,  as  he  had  done  before  his  conver- 
sion, in  the  matter  of  conflicting  opinions  of 
warring  sects,  not  because  he  was  lacking  in 
decision  of  character,  but  because  of  the  ir- 


46  MAKERS  AND  MOLDBRS  OF 


rational  and  repelling  theologies  delivered  from 
the  sacred  desks  at  the  time.  Calvinism,  in  all 
of  the  naked  deformity  and  monstrosity  of  the 
"five  points,"  was  the  dominant  issue.  The 
object  of  every  sermon  preached  was  either  to 
defend  Calvinism  or  to  assail  it. 

Mr.  Stone  said  of  that  time,  "My  mind  was 
continually  tossed  on  the  waves  of  speculative 
divinity,  the  all-engrossing  theme  of  the  re- 
ligious community  at  that  period.  Clashing 
controversial  theories  were  urged  by  the  dif- 
ferent sects  with  much  zeal  and  bad  feeling. 
There  is  no  surer  sign,"  he  declared,  "of  the 
low  state  of  true  religion."  This  man  of  God, 
long  afterwards,  delivered  his  soul  and  gave 
expression  to  his  most  solemn  conviction  con- 
cerning this  abomination  of  desolation  in  the 
Holy  Place :  "Calvinism  is  among  the  heaviest 
clogs  on  Christianity  in  the  world.  It  is  a  dark 
mountain  between  heaven  and  earth,  and  is 
amongst  the  most  discourging  hindrances  to 
sinners  from  seeking  the  kingdom  of  God ;  and 
engenders  bondage  and  gloominess  in  the 
saints." 

He  Enters  the  Presbyterian  Ministry 

In  the  titanic  struggle  with  creeds,  con- 
fessions, and  Calvinistic  pulpiteers,  he  was,  at 
least,  partially  victorious  in  reaching  the  con- 


7 HE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  47 


elusion  that  he  had  received  a  call  to  the  min- 
istry of  the  Presbyterian  Church.  All  of  his 
troubles  had  not  been  overcome,  for  upon  ap- 
plication for  his  ordination  papers,  he  frankly 
confessed  his  difficulties  to  some  of  the  lead- 
ing ministers  of  the  denomination.  These  they 
tried,  in  vain,  to  minify  or  explain  away,  and 
finally  asked  how  far  he  was  willing  to  receive 
the  Confession.  He  answered,  "As  far  as  it  is 
consistent  with  the  Word  of  God."  They  con- 
cluded this  was  satisfactory  and  a  sufficient 
basis  on  which  to  proceed  with  the  ordination. 
Accordingly,  when  the  Presbytery  propounded 
the  usual  question,  "Do  you  receive  and  adopt 
the  Confession  of  Faith,  as  containing  the  sys- 
tem of  doctrine  taught  in  the  Bible?"  his 
public  answer  was  the  same  as  the  one  he  had 
given  in  private.   However,  he  was  ordained. 

The  mental  reservation  with  which  he  ac- 
cepted the  Confession  was  fatal  to  orthodox 
conformity  to  the  Calvinistic  standards  of 
Presbyterianism.  The  more  he  studied  the 
Confession  of  Faith  the  less  he  liked  it.  Against 
its  hereditary  total  depravity,  its  special  grace, 
particular  redemption,  miraculous  regenera- 
tion, unconditional  election  and  reprobation, 
and  damnation  generally,  his  soul  revolted 
with  horror  and  hatred  unspeakable.  Calvin's 
God  was  Stone's  Devil. 


48 


MAKERS  AND  HOLDERS  OF 


The  Light  of  the  Word  Breaks 

The  psychology  of  the  Stone  reformation 
puts  down  its  finger  at  this  point,  and  finds  the 
beginning  of  that  revolution  in  the  revulsion  of 
a  great  soul  against  the  theology  of  Geneva 
and  the  Westminster  Divines.  Barton  W. 
Stone  found  his  way  out  of  the  theological  con- 
fusions of  mystery  Babylon  as  all  the  reform- 
ers before  him  had  done.  He  is  clear  and 
unmistakable  on  that  point.  He  declares : 
"From  this  state  of  perplexity  I  was  relieved 
by  the  precious  Word  of  God.  From  reading 
and  meditating  upon  it,  I  became  convinced 
that  God  did  love  the  whole  world,  and  that 
the  reason  why  he  did  not  save  all  was  be- 
cause of  their  unbelief,  and  that  the  reason 
why  they  believed  not  was  not  because  God 
did  not  exert  his  physical  almighty  power  in 
them  to  make  them  believe,  but  because  they 
neglected  and  received  not  his  testimony  given 
in  the  word  concerning  his  Son,  'These  are 
written  that  ye  might  believe  that  Jesus  is  the 
Christ,  the  Son  of  God,  and  that  believing  ye 
might  have  life  through  his  name.'" 

It  has  already  appeared  in  the  little  that  has 
been  said  that  Barton  W.  Stone  was  a  man  of 
penetrating  mind,  benevolent  heart,  sensitive 
conscience,  fair,  broad,  and  nobly  candid,  with 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  49 


individuality  enough  to  assert  his  right  to 
freedom  and  independence.  He  had  prophetic 
vision,  the  power  to  see  truth  and  to  distin- 
guish it  from  error.  There  was  in  him  the  worst 
of  raw  material  for  the  manufacture  of  a  sec- 
tarian. He  was  too  large  of  brain  and  catholic 
in  spirit  to  be  caught  in  the  toils  of  a  shib- 
boleth-pronouncing religion.  His  evolution  out 
of  the  denominational  conception  of  Christian- 
ity, and  a  sectarian  interpretation  of  the  Bible, 
notwithstanding  a  bad  environment,  was  only 
a  question  of  time,  and  not  much  time  at  that. 
The  processes  of  growth,  and  the  bitter  op- 
position that  theological  growth  always  ex- 
cites, did  not  take  long  to  culminate  in  ec- 
clesiastical censure  and  his  withdrawal  from 
the  Presbyterian  Church. 

The  Great  Caneridge  Meeting 

Shortly  before  his  severance  from  the  Old 
Connection,  he  came  to  the  old  far-famed  blue- 
grass  region  of  Kentucky,  and  began  to  preach, 
on  a  wider  scale,  his  new-found  gospel  of  uni- 
versal love  and  light.  In  the  month  of  August. 
1801,  he  began  at  Caneridge,  Bourbon  County, 
what  was  perhaps  the  most  renowned  of  the 
historic  revivals  in  the  annals  of  American 
evangelization.  It  was  characteristically,  and 
shall  we  not  say,    prophetically,  a    union  re- 


50  MAKERS  AND  MOLDERS  OF 


vival ;  a  number  of  preachers  of  "different  de- 
nominations" taking  part  in  it ;  but  Mr.  Stone 
was  the  conspicuous  personage  in  preaching 
and  personal  leadership.  More  than  20,000 
people  came  from  many  counties  and  from 
different  states,  and  stayed  as  long  as  they 
could  get  anything  to  eat.  As  noted  as  Ken- 
tuckians  are  for  material  supplies  and  big  din- 
ners, this  vast  concourse  of  consumers  bred  a 
famine  in  the  community.  The  mighty  camp 
meeting  decamped  prematurely  on  account  of 
the  exhaustion  of  food  supplies.  A  tremendous 
wave  of  religious  excitement  and  enthusiasm 
descended  upon  the  great  throng  as  they 
listened  with  breathless  interest  to  the  word  of 
life.  Multitudes  of  people,  many  of  them  in- 
fidels and  the  most  hardened  sinners,  were 
smitten  down  like  soldiers  in  battle,  and  lay 
motionless  for  hours,  reviving  at  last  to 
scramble  to  their  feet,  either  in  agonies  of  re- 
morse or  in  ecstasies  of  spiritual  joy.  These 
cataleptic  convulsions,  known  at  the  time  as 
the  "jerks"  on  account  of  the  strange  bodily 
contortions  and  violent  agitations  produced, 
were  regarded  by  Mr.  Stone  as  special  mani- 
festations of  the  power  of  God  in  the  conver- 
sions of  men.  Perhaps  he  was  right.  Any 
shock,  or  stroke,  or  "fit,"  we  should  imagine, 
that  would  lead  unbelievers  and  case-hardened 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  51 


sinners  to  a  consciousness  of  their  need  of  re- 
pentance and  salvation  through  Jesus  Christ, 
might  justly  be  regarded  as  the  work  and 
power  of  God. 

Ripeness  of  the  Times 

The  profound  and  far-reaching  significance 
of  this  Caneridge  revival  cannot  be  adequately 
appreciated,  unless  we  consider  the  dark  back- 
ground of  infidelity  and  worldliness  then  ex- 
isting in  the  United  States,  from  which  it  was 
the  first  great  reaction.  French  atheism  that 
followed  the  Revolution  and  eighteenth  cen- 
tury English  Deism,  held  the  field,  followed 
by  the  recrudescence  of  a  crass  paganism  in  life 
and  morals.  The  church  had  become  a  Kil- 
kenny cattery  and  had  well  nigh  threshed  it- 
self to  death  on  silly  dogmatic  issues,  from 
one  end  of  the  line  to  the  other.  James  Lane 
Allen  in  his  "Choir  Invisible"  is  authority  for 
the  statement  that  a  batch  of  100  copies  of 
"Payne's  Age  of  Reason,"  sold  like  hot  cakes 
on  the  streets  of  Lexington,  Ky.,  one  hundred 
and  fifteen  years  ago.  At  that  time,  and  dur- 
ing the  incumbency  of  the  great  Timothy 
Dwight  at  Yale,  there  were  but  few  students 
in  the  college  who  had  the  courage  to  acknowl- 
edge themselves  Christians  and  members  of 
churches.   There  were  numerous  infidel  socie- 


52  MAKERS  AND  MOLDERS  OF 


ties  named  after  prominent  French  skeptics  of 
the  period.  Ministers  of  that  day  rode  to  their 
appointments  with  a  New  Testament  in  one 
end  of  their  saddle-bags  and  a  bottle  of 
whiskey  in  the  other,  and  sometimes  they 
failed  to  materialize  on  account  of  a  slight  at- 
tack of  "overstimulation." 

The  people  had  grown  tired  of  infidel  pa- 
ganism, both  intellectual  and  practical,  and  put, 
therefore,  a  corresponding  energy  and  earnest- 
ness into  the  evangelical  reaction,  which  had 
its  first  great  innings  at  Caneridge.  The  re- 
ligious excitement  evoked  in  this  meeting  did 
not,  like  a  similar  phenomenon  in  the  more  re- 
cent Welsh  revival,  react  injuriously  upon  the 
spiritual  life  of  the  people,  but  continued  for 
many  years  in  the  increased  faith  and  fervid 
devotion  of  the  churches. 

It  may  be  said,  I  think,  in  perfect  historical 
fairness  to  all  concerned,  that  the  sustained 
evangelistic  enthusiasm  and  success  charac- 
teristic of  the  Disciples  during  the  hundred 
years  of  their  existence,  had  one  of  its  chief 
sources  here  at  Caneridge ;  although  it  has 
never  been  quite  as  emotional  and  perfervid  as 
the  type  of  this  early  experience.  The  Dis- 
ciples brought  an  intellectual  element  in  that 
modified  it  considerably  in  this  particular. 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  53 


The  Movement  Spreads 

By  the  time  this  stage  in  the  evolution  of  the 
Stone  movement  had  been  reached,  the  leader 
had  gathered  around  him,  mostly  from  the 
Presbyterians,  a  number  of  ministers  of  "light 
and  leading,"  who  became  powerful  and  suc- 
cessful evangelists  of  the  new  movement. 
These  men  went  forth  and  boldly  preached  the 
sufficiency  of  the  Gospel  to  save  men,  and  that 
the  testimony  of  God  was  designed  and  able  to 
produce  faith.  "The  people  appeared,"  says 
Mr.  Stone,  "as  just  awakened  from  the  sleep 
of  ages ;  they  seemed  to  see  for  the  first  time 
that  they  were  responsible  beings,  and  that  the 
refusal  to  use  the  means  appointed  was  a 
damning  sin." 

Many  converts  were  made,  and  numerous 
churches  established,  notably  in  central  Ken- 
tucky and  the  Western  Reserve  of  Ohio.  These 
churches  were  founded  on  the  Bible,  in  the 
plain  and  obvious  import  of  its  words,  as  the 
only  and  sufficient  rule  of  faith  and  life.  The 
designating  title  chosen,  both  for  individual 
members  and  congregations,  was  "Christian." 

Some  years  ago  in  examining  the  early  rec- 
ords of  the  church  in  Cynthiana,  organized  by 
T.  M.  Allen  in  1828,  the  charter  written  by  Mr. 
Allen,  an  associate  of  Mr.  Stone,  was  found  in 
words  like  these,  as  near  as  they  can  be  re- 


54  MAKERS  AND  HOLDERS  OF 


produced  from  memory :  "We,  the  under- 
signed, wish  to  form  ourselves  into  a  church 
of  our  Lord  and  Saviour  Jesus  Christ  in  the 
Town  of  Cynthiana,  Ky.  The  name  Christian 
is  the  only  name  by  which  we  desire  to  be 
called,  and  the  Bible  alone  is  the  all-sufHcient 
rule  of  our  faith  and  practice."  Such  were  the 
distinguishing  elements  of  these  new  Christian 
churches. 

Union  of  Stone  and  Campbell  Forces 

At  the  time  of  the  union  of  the  Stone  and 
Campbell  forces  in  Kentucky  in  the  year  1832, 
both  sides  were  ripe  and  ready  for  the  consum- 
mation. The  two  leaders  had  carried  on  a 
lengthy  correspondence  in  their  respective 
papers  with  a  view  of  ascertaining  definitely 
points  of  agreement,  and  differences,  if  any 
existed.  There  was  absolute  harmony  in  fun- 
damentals. The  aims  and  purposes  of  the  two 
reformations  were  indentical.  Only  a  single 
minor  point  of  variance  appeared  in  the  field 
of  theology,  and  that  was  in  regard  to  the 
eflFect  of  the  atonement  on  God.  Mr.  Campbell 
insisted  on  an  intellectual  explanation  of  the 
atonement  in  its  relation  to  the  divine  govern- 
ment, in  the  matter  that  God,  as  a  moral  gov- 
ernor, was  enabled  thereby  to  be  just  while  the 
justifier  of  those  who  believe  in  Jesus.  Mr. 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  55 


Stone  declined  to  follow  in  any  speculative  or 
philosophical  effort  to  explain  the  mystery  of 
the  cross  in  its  relation  to  God ;  simply  con- 
tenting himself  with  the  everlasting  yea  of  its 
acknowledged  effect  as  the  reconciler  of  man 
to  God,  and  not  God  to  man.  This  question 
M-as  eliminated  from  the  discussion  as  of  no 
particular  significance  to  either  side. 

The  Immersion  Question  Settled 

As  most  of  the  "New  Lights,"  as  outsiders 
called  them,  were  Paedobaptists  at  the  begin- 
ning, including  the  leader,  the  question  of  bap- 
tism had  to  be  taken  in  hand,  and  threshed  out 
to  a  finish.  The  adoption  of  the  Bible  as  the 
only  and  all-sufficient  rule  of  faith  and  prac- 
tice, as  with  the  two  Presbyterian  Campbells, 
at  the  beginning  of  their  movement,  the  prob- 
lem of  baptism  had  to  come  up  for  reconsidera- 
tion and  final  solution.  It  came  up,  and  was 
settled  in  the  same  old  way,  as  it  always  must, 
under  similar  circumstances;  Mr.  Stone,  and 
an  overwhelming  majority  of  his  associates, 
were  immersed  and  infant  baptism  was  rele- 
gated to  the  shades.  Those  that  held  out  and 
were  satisfied  with  affusion  were  so  few  as  to 
constitute  a  negligible  quantity,  when  the  ne- 
gotiations for  union  were  finally  settled,  and 
the  union  consummated.   This  was  not  an  in- 


56 


MAKERS  AND  HOLDERS  OF 


stance  of  union  by  legislation  of  ecclesiastical 
authority,  for  neither  party  believed  in  the 
right  of  churches  to  legislate  or  command. 
When  leading  congregations  of  the  two  bodies 
in  centers  of  population  like  Lexington,  Paris, 
Georgetown,  Richmond  and  Mayesville,  came 
together,  as  they  did,  it  was  an  easy  matter  for 
the  smaller  churches  and  individuals  to  fall  in 
line. 

Dr.  Richardson  in  his  Life  of  Alexander 
Campbell  says  of  the  Christian  Connection : 
"They  were  characterized  by  a  simplicity  of 
belief  and  manners,  and  a  liberality  of  spirit 
highly  captivating,  and  possessed,  in  general, 
a  striking  and  praiseworthy  readiness  to  re- 
ceive additional  light  from  the  Bible." 

It  is  hardly  worth  while  to  record  the  fact 
for  information,  that  a  body  of  "irreconcila- 
bles"  refused  to  come  into  the  union,  and  con- 
tinued a  separate  existence  under  the  old 
name.  These  have  developed  into  a  com- 
munion of  respectable  proportions,  which  has 
inherited  and  maintained  many  of  the  ex- 
cellencies of  its  illustrious  founder  and  his 
first  associates. 

Our  Inheritance  from  Mr.  Stone 

In  addition  to  the  name  Christian,  the  com- 
bined movement  has  inherited  from  Mr.  Stone 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  57 


and  his  fellow-workers  a  larger  measure  of 
the  spirit  of  New  Testament  evangelism  and 
individual  consecration  of  life.  These  re- 
formers were  mighty  men  of  God.  The  intel- 
lectual and  argumentative  tinge  of  the  Camp- 
bell movement  needed  relief  by  the  influence 
of  the  spirit  of  holiness  and  prayer.  Campbell 
men  were  didactic,  exegetic,  and  logical ;  the 
Stone  men  were  dynamic,  explosive,  and 
hortatory. 

Campbell  and  Stone  Compared 

The  combination  of  these  qualities  was 
needed  on  both  sides.  After  the  union,  evan- 
gelists, as  a  rule,  went  out  by  twos.  The  Camp- 
bell man  was  the  preacher  who  turned  on  the 
light,  the  Stone  man  was  the  exhorter  who 
poured  in  the  fire.  A  team,  for  instance,  like 
Aylett  Rains  and  John  Allen  Gano.  what 
mighty  engineering  for  the  Kingdom  of  God ! 
Rains,  according  to  the  colored  preacher, 
"argufied"  and  Gano  "brought  on  the  arouse- 
ment."  An  as  old  mountain  preacher  once 
said  to  the  writer,  "Come  and  go  on  a  preach- 
ing tower  (tour)  with  me.  You'll  lighten  and 
I'll  thunder,  and  we'll  bring  'em  in."  The 
Campbell  preacher  lightened  and  the  Stone 
evangelist  thundered,  and  they  "brought  'em 
in,"    What  the  intellectual  and  theological 


58 


MAKERS  AND  MOLDERS  OF 


teaching  of  the.  "Disciples"  most  needed  was 
the  spiritual  and  hortatory  element  brought  in 
by  the  "Christians."  May  this  union  be  for- 
ever indissoluble. 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  59 


WALTER  SCOTT 

Masterful  Treacher  and  Teacher 


J-  are  Thomas  Campbell,  Alexander  Camp- 
bell, Barton  W.  Stone  and  Walter  Scott.  The 
last  named  is  fourth  in  enumeration,  but  by  no 
means  fourth  in  distinctive  importance.  In 
originality  of  conception,  vigor  of  presenta- 
tion, enthusiasm,  courage,  boldness  and  elo- 
quence, he  comes  near  heading  the  list.  He 
was  not  the  initiator  or  representative  of  any 
organized  movement  within  the  church  like 
his  three  illustrious  comrades,  but  so  far  as  the 
distinctiveness  of  his  contributions  to  the  new 
movement  was  concerned,  he  stands  first  in 
historical  and  theological  importance. 

Biographical  Sketch  of  Scott 

Mr.  Scott,  as  his  name  indicates,  was  a 
Scotchman,  and  none  the  worse  for  that.  The- 
ology and  the  religious  consciousness  run  in 
the  blood  north  of  the  Tweed.    Brains  and 


current  reformation 


60 


MAKERS  AND  MOLDBRS  OF 


reverence  and  appreciation  of  Biblical  knowl- 
edge appear  to  be  congenital  with  the  typical 
Scotchman.  Walter  Scott,  like  the  Campbells 
from  Presbyterian  north  of  Ireland,  had  in- 
herited the  best  instincts  and  qualities  of  his 
race.  Educated  on  his  native  heath,  he  came, 
in  his  early  manhood,  to  the  United  States.  An 
Episcopalian  by  affiliation  and  not  by  convic- 
tion, he  came  back  to  the  traditional  com- 
munion of  his  fathers,  and  took  membership 
with  a  Presbyterian  church  soon  after  his  ar- 
rival in  this  country.  He  had  been  trained  for 
a  teacher  in  his  native  land,  and  soon  after 
coming  to  Pittsburgh,  took  educational  work 
in  connection  with  an  academy  in  that  city.  He 
became  tutor  in  several  private  families,  teach- 
ing in  the  home  of  the  father  of  Dr.  Robert 
Richardson.  Robert,  the  son,  became  his  most 
famous  pupil,  studying  New  Testament  Greek 
and  the  classics  under  the  brilliant  young 
Scotchman.  It  seems  to  have  been  his  associa- 
tion with  the  Richardsons  that  brought  him 
into  contact  with  the  Campbells  and  many 
other  friends  of  the  reformation  in  Pitts- 
burgh. His  deep  religious  nature,  his  love  of 
truth  and  righteousness,  his  keen  perception, 
his  fine  capacity  for  the  acquisition  of  knowl- 
edge, and  his  profound  reverence  for  the  Bible 
and  the  Christian  religion,  made  him  a  splen- 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  61 


did  subject  for  instruction  and  inspiration  on 
the  part  of  the  two  reformers.  One  of  the 
finest  passages  in  Dr.  Richardson's  Memoirs  of 
Alexander  Campbell  is  a  description  of  the 
personality  and  powers  of  Walter  Scott  in 
comparison  and  contrast  to  those  of  Mr. 
Campbell,  showing  how  one  man  reinforced 
and  supplemented  the  other  in  a  combination 
the  most  efficient  and  powerful  that  could  be 
imagined  in  the  leadership  and  propagation  of 
the  restoration  movement. 

His  Sermonic  Ability 

Scott  was  a  preacher  of  dramatic  and  thrill- 
ing eloquence.  When  one  of  the  pioneers  who 
had  heard  him  has  occasion  to  refer  to  great 
preachers  or  preaching,  he  instinctively  utters 
the  name  of  Walter  Scott.  Issac  Errett  once 
said  in  referring  to  a  great  sermon  preached 
by  Dr.  Armitage  of  New  York  before  one  of 
our  conventions,  "I  have  not  heard  such 
preaching  since  Walter  Scott." 

I  am  reminded  of  what  a  great  criminal 
lawyer  said  to  me  of  John  J.  Crittenden  of 
Kentucky,  and  his  matchless  oratory.  "John 
J.,"  said  he,  "why,  at  his  worst  he  could  beat 
'em  all,  and  at  his  best  he  could  beat  himself." 
Mr.  Scott  was  not  always  equal  in  his  efforts, 
and  perhaps  at  his  worst  could  not  beat  'em 


62  MAKERS  AND  MOLDBRS  OF 


all,  but  certainly  at  his  best  he  could  beat  him- 
self and  all  the  rest,  into  the  bargain.  I  recall 
some  of  the  old  fireside  conversations  in  our 
country  home,  when  my  stepfather,  a  preacher 
of  the  first  generation  of  Disciples,  would  talk 
of  the  great  preachers  of  our  movement  he 
had  heard  and  known.  When  he  came  to 
speak  of  Scott,  he  glowed  with  an  enthusiasm 
and  eloquence  almost  equal  to  the  master  he 
was  describing.  A  mighty  torrential  sermon 
on  the  Three  Divine  Missions,  one  hour  on  the 
Mission  of  Christ,  one  hour  on  the  Mission  of 
the  Holy  Spirit,  one  hour  on  the  Mission  of  the 
Church,  holding  his  audience  spellbound  to  the 
last  word !  A  phenomenon  of  preaching  power 
in  an  age  when  long  sermons  were  expected 
and  customary. 

His  Methods  of  Preaching 

This  masterful  proclaimer  of  the  Word  com- 
bined the  didactic,  the  poetic,  and  the  evan- 
gelistic to  a  degree  astonishingly  unusual.  His 
mind  was  as  straight  and  clear  in  the  compre- 
hension and  explanation  of  facts  as  his 
emotional  nature  was  strong  and  moving  in 
his  appeals  to  men  to  be  reconciled  to  God. 
As  a  teacher  he  possessed  illuminating  powers 
of  comparison  and  illustration,  while  his  spir- 
itual mind  enabled  him  to  interpret  analogies 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  63 


in  a  way  at  once  surprising  and  captivating  to 
his  students  and  hearers.  Walking  in  field  or 
forest  with  one  of  his  pupils  he  would  pluck  a 
flower  from  its  stem,  and  holding  it  up,  would 
say  with  deep  and  tender  feeling:  "Do  you 
know,  my  dear,  why  in  the  scriptures  Christ 
is  called  the  Rose  of  Sharon?"  If  the  answer 
was  not  at  once  ready,  he  would  make  reply : 
"It  is  because  the  Rose  of  Sharon  has  no 
thorns."  And  then  he  would  go  on  to  dilate  in 
rapt,  poetic  phrase  on  the  beautiful  traits  of 
the  Saviour's  character. 

His  Pedagogic  Attitude 

His  chief  theme  of  comparison  and  illustra- 
tion, next  to  the  glory  and  perfection  of  the 
Redeemer,  was  the  order  and  significance  of 
the  elements  of  the  gospel.  His  powers  of 
analysis  and  classification  were  phenomenal. 
His  pedagogic  attitude  to  the  gospel  never  for- 
sook him.  Sometimes  he  would  gather  around 
him  a  group  of  boys  and  proceed  to  con- 
struct for  their  benefit  a  little  primer  cate- 
chism. "Now,  boys,"  he  would  say,  "let  us 
take  a  nice  little  lesson  in  the  blessed 
gospel."  After  a  brief  drill,  the  boys  re- 
peating after  him,  he  would  wind  up  the 
interview  in  a  fashion  like  this :  "Well, 
boys,   in    what   does   the    gospel  consist?" 


64 


MAKERS  AND  MOLDERS  OF 


Answer:  "In  facts,  commands  and  promises." 
"How  many  facts?"  Answer:  "Three." 
"What  are  they?"  Answer:  "Death,  burial 
and  resurrection  of  Christ."  "How  many  com- 
mands?" Answer:  "Three."  "What  are 
they?"  Answer:  "Faith,  repentance  and  bap- 
tism." "How  many  promises?"  Answer: 
"Three."  "What  are  they?"  Answer:  "Re- 
mission of  sins,  the  gift  of  the  Holy  Spirit  and 
everlasting  life."  "Now,  boys,"  the  teacher 
would  say,  "what  do  you  do  with  the  facts?" 
Answer :  "Believe  them."  "What  do  you  do 
with  commands?"  Answer:  "Obey  them." 
"What  do  you  do  with  the  promises?"  An- 
swer: "Enjoy  them."  He  would  then  express 
the  ferv-ent  hope  that  the  boys  would  accept 
this  simple  and  glorious  gospel  and  grow  up 
good  and  useful  men.  This  luminous  and 
comprehensive  classification  of  gospel  ele- 
ments, as  an  effective  way  of  presenting  the 
subject,  has  made  a  lasting  impression  on  the 
Disciple  consciousness.  It  may  be  doubted 
if  there  is  one  of  our  preachers  in  the  world, 
or  ever  was  in  it.  no  matter  how  progressive 
or  scientific,  or  up  to  date,  or  how  much  of 
the  "modern  spirit"  he  may  have  thought  he 
possessed,  who  has  not  for  illustrative  and 
simplifying  purposes,  made  use  of  this  ar- 
rangement of  the  gospel  of  our  salvation.  Its 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  65 


exhaustiveness  has  been  denied,  it  has  been 
modified  and  supplemented  and  interpreted  in- 
to a  different  gospel  to  the  one  Walter  Scott 
had  in  mind,  but  it  continues  to  be  used  as  a 
helpful  method  of  enabling  the  plain  man  to 
understand  and  follow  the  way  of  life,  and  per- 
haps it  is  the  one  thing  by  which  its  author 
will  be  best  known  and  longest  remembered  in 
the  history  of  our  cause. 

The  Exclusive  Basis  of  Christian  Union 

The  distinctive  and  fundamental  contribu- 
tion of  Mr.  Scott  to  the  theology  of  the  ref- 
ormation was  not  a  simple  and  scriptural 
classification  of  the  facts,  commands  and 
promises  of  the  gospel.  Not  enough  has  been 
made  of  the  fact  that  he  was  the  discoverer  of 
a  new  and  adequate  Christology  based  on 
Peter's  confession  in  Matt.  16:16,  as  the  means 
of  salvation  and  the  exclusive  basis  of  Chris- 
tian union.  The  honor  of  the  discovery  and 
formulation  and  first  presentation  of  the  doc- 
trine of  the  immersion  of  a  penitent  believer 
into  the  name  of  Father,  Son  and  Holy  Spirit 
in  order  to  the  remission  of  sins,  belongs  to  the 
same  source.  The  only  conception  or  practice 
in  the  restoration  theology  that  could  lay 
claim  to  originality  or  peculiarity  was  this 
idea  of  the  immersion  of  a  believing  penitent  in 


66  MAKERS  AND  MOLDERS  OF 


the  name  of  Jesus  Christ  for  the  remission  of 
sins  and  the  gift  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  Immersion 
was  familiar  and  baptism  for  the  remission  of 
sins  was  a  doctrine  of  all  the  creeds,  but  the 
two  combined  in  relation  to  the  penitent  be- 
liever had  not  been  taught  or  practiced  since 
the  days  of  the  apostles.  Dr.  Richardson,  in 
his  Life  of  Alexander  Campbell,  brings  these 
points  into  view  as  achievements  of  Walter 
Scott,  in  a  single  suggestive  paragraph : 

"His  discourse  was  based  upon  Peter's  Con- 
fession, Alatt.  16:16,  in  connection  with  the 
same  apostle's  answer  to  the  inquiry :  'What 
shall  we  do?'  given  to  the  penitents  on  the  day 
of  Pentecost,  Acts  2  :38.  As  the  lordship  and 
glory  of  Christ,  the  Son  of  God,  was  his  favor- 
ite theme,  and  he  was,  on  this  occasion,  ani- 
mated with  more  than  usual  fer\'or,  he  became 
most  eloquent,  and  held  the  audience  in  a  state 
of  rapt  attention  as  he  gradually  developed 
the  power  of  the  simple  but  comprehensive 
Christian  creed — the  rock  which  Christ  an- 
nounced as  the  foundation  on  which  he  would 
build  his  church  ;  the  grand  proposition  proved 
by  the  miracles  of  fulfilled  prophecy,  super- 
natural wisdom,  divine  love,  healing  power, 
and  victory  over  the  grave,  detailed  by  the 
evangelists,  that  men  might  believe,  and  'be- 
lieving, have  life  through  his  name.'  And  when 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  67 


he  went  on  to  show  his  gospel  was  adminis- 
tered in  the  beginning  and  that  believers  were 
baptized  into  the  name  and  into  the  death  of 
Christ,  and  being  thus  buried  with  him  and 
raised  again  to  a  new  life,  received  in  this 
symbolic  act  the  remission  of  sins  and  the 
promised  Holy  Spirit,  which  was  the  seal  of 
the  Christian  covenant  and  the  earnest  of  an 
eternal  inheritance,  his  hearers,  while  charmed 
with  such  a  novel  view  of  the  simplicity  and 
completeness  of  the  gospel,  were,  as  on  the 
former  occasion,  filled  with  doubt  and  wonder, 
and  were  ready  to  ask  each  other,  'How  can 
these  things  be?' " 

Messianic  Interpretation  of  Peter's  Confession 

To  take  the  most  important  consideration 
first:  Mr.  Scott's  Messianic  and  Christological 
interpretation  of  Peter's  confession,  and  his 
eloquent  insistence,  with  both  tongue  and  pen, 
upon  the  glorious  fact  that  the  personality  of 
Jesus  of  Nazareth,  the  Son  of  God,  in  his 
threefold  office  of  prophet,  priest  and  king,, 
was  the  creed  of  Christianity,  the  foundation 
of  the  Church,  and  the  basis  of  Christian  un- 
ion, far  exceeds  in  value  and  significance  any 
other  contribution  which  has  been  made  to 
religious  thought  and  life  in  modern  times. 
His  principal  book,  "The  Great  Demonstra- 


68  MAKERS  AND  MOLDERS  OF 


tion,"  was  given  to  the  development  and  em- 
phasis of  this  sublime  and  far-reaching  proposi- 
tion, the  fact  of  Christ  and  his  place  in  the 
Christian  system.  The  other  reformers  were 
inclined  to  build  on  the  Bible  as  the  funda- 
mental creed,  thus  substituting  a  literary  for 
a  personal  foundation.  They  all  had  glimpses 
of  the  truth,  but  Scott  discerned  with  greater 
clearness  and  decision  the  essential  fact  on 
which  supreme  accent  must  be  laid.  No  long- 
er were  men  taught  to  attain  salvation  by  be- 
lieving in  creeds  and  doctrines,  but  by  be- 
lief in  and  submission  to  a  divine  human  per- 
son, the  one  who  had  all  power  to  save,  and 
all  might  to  redeem.  Christ  was  the  object  of 
faith,  not  opinions  and  dogmas.  ]\Ien  were  not 
to  trust  in  institutions,  ordinances,  or  proposi- 
tions for  salvation,  but  in  Christ,  the  Son  of 
God  and  the  only  Saviour  of  men.  Faith  was 
personal  conviction  concerning  a  personal 
Saviour,  the  outcome  of  which  was  personal 
salvation  and  personal  character.  These  re- 
formers went  forth  as  apostles  and  prophets 
had  done  before  them,  preaching  Christ  and 
practicing  faith  in  him  and  obedience  to  his 
commandments  as  conditions  of  salvation  and 
means  of  Christian  manhood. 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  69 


Its  Bearing  on  Christian  Union 

The  bearing  of  this  Christological  theology 
on  Christian  union,  the  cardinal  plank  in 
Thomas  Campbell's  platform,  was  obvious  and 
vital.  It  takes  us  back  to  Paul's  declaration : 
"Other  foundation  can  no  man  lay  than  that 
which  is  laid,  which  is  Jesus  Christ."  The 
rock  foundation  on  which  Christ  was  to  build 
his  church  was  not  Peter's  confession  as  an 
abstract  truth  or  proposition,  but  Christ  him- 
self in  his  essential  personality  as  the  Son  of 
God.  All  the  possibilities  of  unity  focalize  at 
this  point.  Men  may  continue  to  arrange, 
formulate,  and  ventilate  bases  of  unity  in  ef- 
forts to  realize  the  unification  of  the  churches, 
but  in  the  future  as  in  the  past,  they  will  have 
only  failure  for  their  pains.  This  is  not  the 
business  of  men,  they  are  not  competent  to  its 
adequate  performance.  If  they  were  it  is  not 
needed.  The  foundation  is  already  in,  the 
basis  has  been  divinely  submitted  by  the  Son 
of  God  in  Peter's  confession  at  Csesarea  Philip- 
pi.  Are  not  all  existing  evangelical  churches 
built  on  Jesus  Christ,  on  his  divinity  and  hu- 
manity, his  personality  and  power  to  save 
and  rule?  Why,  then,  are  they  divided?  Their 
unity  is  fundamental,  being  the  unity  of  the  faith 
in  the  Son  of  God ;  their  divisions  are  super- 


70 


MAKERS  AND  MOLDERS  OF 


ficial,  consisting  of  walls,  like  the  Jews  built 
round  the  law,  separating  each  section  ecclesi- 
astically from  other  Christian  organizations. 
These  sectional  walls  are  made  of  peculiar 
phrases,  usages,  doctrines  and  interpretations  of 
certain  portions  of  Scripture.  These  wall  ma- 
terials are  sometimes  foundations  of  the  denom- 
inations, but  not  of  the  church  of  Jesus  Christ.  In 
order,  therefore,  to  union  as  well  as  unity  these 
sectional  partitions  must  be  pierced,  razed  to  the 
ground,  or  rendered  innocuous  as  separative  in- 
stitutions. All  the  churches  need  to  do  is  to 
recognize  and  realize  their  unity  in  Christ  and 
on  Christ,  and  to  pull  down  or  climb  over  their 
sectarian  walls,  which  were  built  to  promote  di- 
vision and  prevent  the  union  of  the  people  of 
God.  The  evolution  and  application  of  this  con- 
fession at  Csesarea  to  the  problem  of  union  has 
been  the  work  of  the  Disciples  for  at  least  fifty 
years.    There  is  much  more  to  come  out  of  it. 

Baptism  for  Remission  of  Sins 

The  story  of  the  introduction  and  proclamation 
and  first  practice,  by  Walter  Scott,  of  the  new 
doctrine  of  baptism  for  the  remission  of  sins  is 
too  familiar  to  be  retold  at  length  in  this  con- 
nection. Adamson  Bentley,  in  a  protracted  meet- 
ing held  for  Jacob  Osborne  at  Braceville,  preach- 
ed on  baptism  and  took  the  same  position  that 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  71 


Mr.  Campbell  had  presented  in  his  debate  with 
McCalla,  affirming  that  it  was  designed  to  be  a 
pledge  of  remission  of  sins.  In  referring  to  this 
sermon  Osborne  said :  "Well,  Brother  Bentley, 
you  have  christened  baptism  today."  "How  so?" 
said  Mr.  Bentley.  "You  have  termed  it  a  re- 
mitting institution."  "Well,"  rejoined  Mr.  Bent- 
ley, "I  do  not  see  how  this  conclusion  is  to  be 
avoided  with  the  Scriptures  before  us."  "It  is 
the  truth,"  said  Mr.  Osborne,  who  was  a  great 
student  of  the  Bible.  Conversation  with  Walter 
Scott,  in  which  the  matter  was  carefully  can- 
vassed, led  him  subsequently  to  reinvestigate  the 
whole  question  in  the  light  of  his  Greek  New 
Testament.  In  this  reconsideration  of  the  subject, 
be  became  deeply  engrossed  in  a  study  of  the  con- 
secutive order  appropriate  to  the  dififerent  items 
of  the  gospel,  and  his  great  powers  of  analysis 
and  arrangement  came  to  his  relief,  and  he 
placed  them  thus:  1.  Faith.  2.  Repentance.  3. 
Baptism.  4.  Remission  of  sins.  5.  Holy  Spirit. 
This  indisputably  was  the  Pentecostal  order,  and 
so  far  as  we  know  has  not  been  revoked  or 
changed.  Clearing  up,  as  it  did,  the  obscurities 
and  perplexities  in  which  the  gospel  had  long 
been  involved,  it  came  to  the  mind  of  Walter 
Scott  with  the  compelling  force  of  new  revela- 
tion. He  was  not  long  in  preaching  what  he 
discovered  to  be  the  truth  of  God,  but  the  en- 


72 


MAKERS  AND  HOLDERS  OF 


thusiasm  of  the  prophet  was  not  matched  by  the 
interest  of  the  people.  His  testimony,  as  eloquent 
and  thrilling  as  it  was  in  the  manner  of  presenta- 
tion, fell  on  dull  minds  and  doubting  hearts. 
The  minds  of  men  and  women  were  so  saturated 
with  theories  of  spiritual  influence  and  a  mysti- 
cal miraculous  regeneration,  and  hereditary  total 
depravity,  that  it  was  next  to  impossible  for  them 
to  understand  a  simple,  straightforward,  intel- 
ligible gospel,  like  the  one  the  preacher  was  urg- 
ing upon  their  acceptance. 

A  Unique  Conversion 

On  one  occasion  that  turned  out  to  be  his- 
toric, near  the  close  of  a  masterful  exposition  of 
the  subject,  a  stranger  came  into  the  house  and 
took  his  seat  in  the  audience.  He  heard  none  of 
the  sermon  except  a  brief  summary  and  reca- 
pitulation and  a  few  words  of  invitation  in  which 
the  speaker  quoted  Acts  2 :38  and  urged  his 
hearers  to  come  forward  and  be  baptized  for  the 
remission  of  sins.  The  stranger,  Mr.  Wm. 
Amends  by  name,  walked  deliberately  forward 
and  asked  to  be  baptized  for  remission,  accord- 
ing to  the  promise  of  the  gospel.  The  preacher 
was  astounded ;  he  did  not  know  what  to  make 
of  it ;  the  stranger  had  not  heard  the  sermon,  and 
yet  he  understood  the  matter  perfectly  just  as 
the  speaker  had  presented  it.    Mr.  Amends  ex- 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  73 


plained  to  Mr.  Scott  subsequently  in  a  letter  that 
has  assumed  a  place  of  historic  importance  in 
Disciple  literature.  He  had  been  reading  the 
second  chapter  of  Acts  and  other  cases  of  con- 
version in  the  Acts  of  Apostles,  and  had  more 
than  once  remarked  to  his  wife  that  when  he 
found  a  preacher  who  preached  as  Peter  did  on 
the  day  of  Pentecost  and  would  give  the  same 
answer  to  inquiring  sinners  as  Peter  did,  he 
would  be  baptized  and  become  a  Christian.  He 
was  as  good  as  his  word ;  he  embraced  the  first 
opportunity  and  it  was  as  much  of  a  surprise  to 
him  as  his  response  was  to  the  preacher. 

The  Spread  and  Acceptance  of  His  Teaching 

The  new  arrangement  and  interpretation  of  the 
gospel  made  slow  progress  at  first,  but  when  once 
the  ice  was  fairly  broken  and  the  message  un- 
derstood, it  went  forward  by  leaps  and  bounds, 
especially  in  the  Western  Reserve  of  Ohio,  where 
Walter  Scott's  first  evangelistic  work  was  done. 
Barton  W.  Stone  once  said  to  Samuel  Rogers 
that  he  had  preached  baptism  for  the  remission 
of  sins  at  the  beginning  of  his  reformatory  work, 
but  had  abandoned  it  because  the  effect  was  like 
pouring  ice  water  down  the  backs  of  his  hearers. 
That  was  because  he  did  not  preach  it  right,  as 
he  afterwards  learned.  The  man  who  preaches 
immersion  in  its  ceremonial  religious  aspects  as 


74 


MAKERS  AND  HOLDERS  OF 


a  kind  of  juridic,  legal  and  arbitrary  external  ar- 
rangement between  God  and  the  sinner,  will 
have  abundant  reason  to  complain  of  a  chilling 
effect  on  his  audience.  In  the  language  of  the 
old  colored  preacher,  it  will  certainly  have  "a 
coolin'  influence  on  de  meetin'."  But  the  man 
who  puts  the  full,  spiritual,  New  Testament  con- 
tent into  the  word  "baptize,"  will  not  displease 
his  most  intelligent  and  Christian  hearers.  A 
polemic  and  dogmatic  age  gave  us  a  lexical  and 
controversial  baptism,  with  about  equal  propor- 
tions of  legalism  and  water  mixed  and  generally 
well  shaken  before  taken.  Untold  harm  has  been 
done  by  preaching  this  legalistic  dogma  of  im- 
mersion for  the  remission  of  sins.  Walter  Scott 
and  the  Campbells,  especially  Thomas  Campbell, 
well  understood  that  it  was  not  "the  outward 
sign"  and  symbol  that  was  a  condition  of  salva- 
tion, but  the  "inward  grace,"  the  cleansing  of  the 
soul  from  sin  by  the  power  of  God,  compared  to 
the  action  of  water  on  a  soiled  garment.  The 
symbol  is  put  for  the  thing  symbolized.  This  is 
the  baptism  that  "washed  away"  the  sins  of  Saul 
of  Tarsus. 

Peter  explains  what  he  meant  by  baptism  for 
the  remission  of  sins  on  the  day  of  Pentecost. 
"The  like  figure  whereunto  baptism  doth  also 
now  save  us,  not  by  the  putting  away  of  the 
filth  of  the  flesh,  but  the  answer  of  a  good  con- 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  75 


science  toward  God."  It  is  not  the  physical  ac- 
tion of  immersion  in  water  for  ceremonial  or 
bathing  purposes,  but  the  purification  of  the  con- 
science from  a  sense  of  defilement  and  guilt  by 
repentance  and  the  power  of  God,  of  which  the 
outward  rite  is  the  symbolic  expression  and  rep- 
resentation. This  is  the  historic  doctrine  of  bap- 
tism for  the  remission  of  sins,  written  in  all  the 
creeds  and  preached  by  the  reformers,  but  prac- 
ticed by  none  of  them  till  the  time  of  Walter 
Scott  and  the  Restoration  Movement. 

His  Singular  Unselfishness 

No  space  is  left  to  speak  of  the  personal  char- 
acter and  devotion  of  this  great  preacher  of 
righteousness.  He  was  a  Christlike  man  of  sin- 
gular detachment  and  unselfishness.  A  striking 
story  of  his  altruism  still  lingers  about  his  old 
haunts  at  Mays  Lick,  Ky.,  where  he  lived  for  a 
time,  where  he  died  and  found  sepulcher.  He 
had  preached  one  of  his  great  sermons  in  the 
presence  of  Alexander  Campbell.  At  the  close 
of  the  service  Mr.  Campbell  went  forward  and 
said :  "Walter,  many  people  are  complimenting 
you  on  your  masterly  sermon  this  morning.  I 
desire  to  present  you  with  a  more  substantial  to- 
ken of  my  appreciation,"  handing  him  a  five  dol- 
lar gold  piece.  Mr.  Scott  thanked  him  and  thrust 
the  coin  into  his  vest  pocket  without  looking  at  it. 


76 


MAKERS  AXD  MOLDERS  OF 


They  went  into  the  country  that  day  to  dine  with 
one  of  the  brethren.  Riding  along  the  road  on 
horseback,  Walter  still  expatiating  on  one  of  the 
great  themes  of  the  gospel,  they  encountered  a 
beggar  who  made  a  piteous  appeal  for  alms.  The 
eloquent  talker  paused  long  enough  to  take  the 
coin  out  of  his  pocket  and  give  it  to  the  tramp, 
again  without  looking  at  it.  "Are  you  aware  of 
the  denomination  of  that  piece  of  money  j'ou  gave 
the  beggar?"  said  Mr.  Campbell,  a  few  moments 
later,  "Xo.  no,"  said  Walter;  "was  it  the  coin  you 
gave  me  in  the  church?"  "Yes,"  said  Mr.  Camp- 
bell, "and  it  was  a  five  dollar  gold  piece."  Here 
was  a  man  who  did  not  think  of  himself,  only  of 
the  holy  cause  and  of  other  people. 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  77 


ISAAC  ERRETT 

Major  Prophet  of  the  Second  Generation 
of  Disciples 

IN  the  longest  personal  conversation  I  ever 
had  w^ith  Isaac  Errett  he  related  two  cir- 
cumstances of  the  early  movement  in  Pittsburgh, 
so  characteristic  and  typical  that  they  may  be 
used  as  illuminating  side  lights  of  his  first  re- 
ligious environment,  and  the  trend  of  the  reli- 
gious movement  with  which  he  had  identified 
himself.  The  time  was  the  early  30's  of  the  last 
century  when  the  "reformed  church,"  as  it  was 
then  called,  began  to  segregate  itself  into  a  dis- 
tinct religious  body,  separate  and  apart  from  all 
existing  denominations  of  Christians.  In  the 
enthusiasm  of  an  extreme  literalism,  the  breth- 
ren practiced  the  "holy  kiss"  in  those  days. 

An  Incident  with  a  Definite  Result 

One  bright  Sunday  morning  a  big,  black,  bur- 
ly negro  man  strode  forward,  presenting  him- 
self for  membership  in  the  church  at  Pittsburgh, 


7£ 


MAKERS  AND  MOLDERS  OF 


where  Brother  Errett  was  then  a  member.  It 
was  the  custom  to  march  round  single  file,  ex- 
tending the  right  hand  of  congratulation  and  fel- 
lowship to  the  new  convert,  imprinting,  at  the 
same  time,  a  resounding  holy  kiss  on  his  glowing 
cheek.  When  the  time  came  for  the  usual  per- 
formance to  begin  on  behalf  of  the  brother  in 
black,  no  one  moved.  Impassive,  unresponsive, 
statuesque  and  cold,  the  people  sat.  reminding 
one  of  a  wilderness  of  marble  slabs  in  an  English 
graveyard,  until  the  situation  became  intolerably 
embarrassing  and  painful.  When  sensitive  breth- 
ren began  to  feel  like  looking  around  for  holes  in 
the  floor  through  which  to  escape,  a  maiden  sister 
of  uncertain  age  rushed  to  the  front,  impulsively 
embraced  her  colored  brother,  implanting  a  fer- 
vent kiss  on  his  dusky  cheek,  shouting  as  she  did 
so.  "I  will  not  deny  my  brother  his  privilege." 
"That,"  said  Brother  Errett,  "put  an  end  to  the 
holy  kiss  in  the  Pittsburgh  church." 

We  agreed  that  two  obvious  inferences  were 
to  be  drawn  from  this  incident.  First,  that  the 
truth  of  the  universal  brotherhood  of  humanity, 
regardless  of  race,  color,  creed,  social  caste,  or 
previous  condition  of  sen-itude.  had  not  found 
its  way  into  the  consciousness  of  the  brotherhood 
at  that  early  stage  of  its  history;  and  secondly, 
that  extreme  literalism  in  the  interpretation  of 
Scripture  that  makes  a  social  custom  of  the  an- 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  79 


cient  East  as  binding  as  a  vital  truth  of  the 
gospel,  is  decidedly  superficial.  It  passes  into 
"innocuous  desuetude"  at  the  first  touch  of  the 
stress  and  strain  of  life. 

The  second  story  referred  to  an  election  of 
elders  that  had  taken  place  in  the  same  church. 
The  qualifications  of  church  officers  was  a  burn- 
ing question  in  those  days.  So  rigid  and  literal 
was  the  construction  put  upon  the  qualifications 
of  elders  in  Timothy  that  it  was  always  difficult 
and  sometimes  impossible  to  find  men  to  fill  the 
office.  On  this  particular  occasion,  the  church 
had  put  in  some  of  its  best  men  to  serve  it  in  the 
capacity  of  bishops.  Satisfaction  with  the  re- 
sults of  the  election  was  general  but  not  uni- 
versal. An  old  Scotchman  in  the  congregation 
complained  that  the  Scriptures  had  not  been  car- 
ried out.  The  men  put  in  were  not  qualified  to 
do  the  work  of  the  eldership.  Walking  home 
with  his  family  that  day,  he  growled  his  criti- 
cisms all  the  way.  He  was  not  "satisfeed"  with 
what  had  been  done.  "Brother  A.  was  all  but 
unanimously  elected,"  said  his  wife :  "what's  the 
matter  with  him?"  "He's  na  qualifeed,"  said  the 
old  Scot.  "Brother  B.  is  a  most  excellent  and 
capable  man;  what's  the  trouble  with  him?" 
"He's  na  qualifeed."  She  named  another  and  an- 
other, and  the  same  old  answer  came  back,  "He's 
na  qualifeed."    Piqued  somewhat  at  the  carping 


80 


MAKERS  AND  MOLDERS  OF 


attitude  of  the  tough  old  Scot,  the  good  wife  in- 
dignantly asked,  "Who,  then,  is  qualifeed?"  "I 
am,"  he  replied,  with  a  crashing  guttural  accent 
on  the  broad  a  of  the  word  "am." 

The  new  democracy  always  takes  care  of  the 
individuality  of  its  citizens.  Where  the  way  is 
made  for  liberty,  the  self-conscious  ego  runs  and 
is  glorified.  It  is  the  way  of  new  movements  to 
attract  egoistic  cranks  and  homy-headed  mal- 
contents, men  bom  in  the  objective  case  and  ac- 
tive voice,  the  kind  that  foregathered  with  David 
in  the  cave  of  Adullam.  Our  early  history-  had 
its  share  of  this  species  of  the  genus  homo,  who 
are  always  at  home  on  questions  of  church  or- 
ganization and  government. 

The  Founding  of  The  Christian  Standard 

Isaac  Errett's  leadership  of  our  reformatory 
movement  began  with  the  first  issue  of  the  Chris- 
tian Standard  in  March,  1866.  Previous  to  the 
time  of  this  publication  he  had  won  distinction  as 
a  man  of  commanding  power  with  both  tongue 
and  pen.  "The  Living  Pulpit  of  the  Christian 
Church,"  edited  by  ^^^  T.  Moore  and  published 
in  1868,  begins  a  brief  biographical  sketch  of 
Isaac  Errett  with  these  two  sentences  : — "Among 
the  preachers  and  writers  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury who  have  plead  for  a  return  to  primitive 
Christianity,  the  subject  of  this  notice  stands 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  81 


pre-eminently  among  the  most  distinguished. 
For  more  than  thirty-five  years  he  has  been  con- 
nected with  the  Disciples,  and,  during  the  great- 
er portion  of  that  time,  has  been  an  earnest,  able 
and  successful  advocate  of  their  plea  for  reforma- 
tion." 

He  Proves  His  Breadth  and  Power 

The  ancient  and  potent  laws  of  heredity,  en- 
vironment and  training,  that  made  Saul  of  Tar- 
sus the  great  interpreter  and  expounder  of  Jesus 
in  the  first  generation  of  Christianity,  made  Isaac 
Errett  the  most  luminous  exponent  in  the  in- 
terpretation and  defense  of  the  Campbell  move- 
ment, for  the  time  in  which  he  lived.  His  apti- 
tude as  a  scholar  and  his  early  and  intimate  as- 
sociation with  the  Campbells  and  Walter  Scott, 
gave  him  exceptional  opportunities  to  understand 
and  appreciate  the  aims  and  ideals  of  the  "cur- 
rent reformation."  His  great  sermon  in  the 
"Living  Pulpit"  on  "The  Law  of  Progressive 
Development,"  placed  him  in  the  front  rank  of 
progressive  and  liberal  interpreters  of  the  res- 
toration plea.  It  soon  became  evident  in  the 
conduct  of  the  Standard  that  its  editor  was  too 
large  to  be  small,  too  broad  to  be  narrow,  too 
deep  to  be  shallow,  too  clear  and  keen  and  pene- 
trating of  vision  to  be  satisfied  with  a  sectarian 
conception  of  Christianity  while  pleading  for  its 


82  MAKERS  AND  MOLDERS  OF 


opposite.  People  who  fight  sectarianism  acquire, 
as  a  rule,  the  spirit  of  a  sectarian,  and  those  who 
would  overthrow  denominationalism  find  them- 
selves obsessed  by  a  first-class  instance  of  denom- 
inational consciousness.  When  the  limitations  of 
human  nature  bump  against  the  problems  of  the- 
olog}%  there  is  apt  to  be  a  potent  illustration  of 
the  saying  of  Douglas  Jerrold,  that  dogmatism  is 
puppyism  come  to  maturity.  Lutherans  of  the 
second  generation  were  as  intolerant  and  perse- 
cuting as  the  Catholics  who  tried  to  stamp  them 
out  in  the  first.  A  dogmatic  age  begets  dogma- 
tism in  those  who  set  themselves  to  oppose  dog- 
ma, and  the  spirit  of  controversy  is  sure  to  ag- 
gravate extreme  tendencies. 

It  was  hardly  to  be  expected  that  Disciple  hu- 
man nature  should  differ  from  the  human  nature 
of  other  people,  or  that  they  should  be  less  in- 
fluenced by  environment  and  the  temper  of  the 
age  than  their  contemporaries. 

Alexander  Campbell,  Number  One,  of  the  cove- 
nant theolog}',  the  Lochian  philosophy,  and  the 
third  epistle  of  Peter,  who  stressed  the  objective 
in  revelation,  the  external  and  hence  the  institu- 
tional in  religion,  begat  a  spiritual  progeny  in  his 
own  image  and  after  his  own  likeness,  who  ran 
ahead  of  their  maker  in  a  hard,  mechanical  and 
quarrelsome  legalism,  which  they  sought  to  fast- 
en as  a  yoke  upon  the  necks  of  their  brethren. 


THB  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT 


83 


The  most  popular  and  authoritative  and  service- 
able passage  of  Scripture  used  by  these  men  who 
esteemed  themselves  "infallibly  right"  was  the 
familiar  declaration :  "Where  the  Scriptures 
speak  we  speak,  and  where  the  Scriptures  are 
silent  we  are  silent,"  and  this  was  the  result  of 
a  strict  constructionism,  the  principle  of  which 
they  applied  in  the  interpretation  of  other  Scrip- 
tures. 

The  Organ  Controversy 

About  the  time  of  the  beginning  of  the  Chris- 
tian Standard,  a  fierce  and  internecine  war 
broke  out  on  the  subject  of  instrumental  music 
in  the  services  of  the  church ;  another  product 
of  negative  literalism.  When  the  proposal  was 
made  to  put  the  organ  in  as  an  aid  to  the  serv- 
ice of  song,  it  was  met  by  the  objection  that  the 
introduction  of  musical  instruments  into  the 
house  of  God  was  a  sin  comparable  to  the  golden 
calf  in  the  camp  of  Israel  or  infant  sprinkling  in 
the  modern  church.  It  was  idolatry  and  will 
worship  because  the  New  Testament  is  silent 
concerning  it,  and  there  is  no  "thus  saith  the 
Lord"  authorizing  its  use  in  the  house  of  God. 
Isaac  Errett  through  his  paper  did  yeoman  serv- 
ice in  educating  our  people  up  to  the  point  of 
realizing  that  this  kind  of  reasoning  was  a  seri- 
ous abuse  of  the  whole  question  of  divine  author- 


84 


MAKERS  AND  MOLDERS  OF 


ity  in  the  Holy  Scriptures.  A  purblind  legalism 
and  a  cocksure  dogmatism  were  making  a  desper- 
ate struggle  to  head  the  movement  in  the  wrong 
direction.  "The  old  reliable,"  the  pet  name  of 
the  American  Christian  Review,  had  gone  over 
to  the  firing  line  of  anti-ism,  and  opened  its  bat- 
teries on  missionary  societies,  the  organ,  the  one 
man  pastor,  all  progressive  tendencies,  and  every- 
body's sectarianism  but  its  own.  It  is  impos- 
sible for  men  and  women  of  our  day  who  are 
clambering  into  the  band-wagon  of  progress,  both 
in  politics  and  religion,  to  comprehend  the  fact 
that  a  little  more  than  a  generation  back  the  word 
"progress"  and  all  its  derivatives  were  under 
ban,  among  religious  reformers  too,  and  the  most 
damning  thing  that  could  be  said  of  a  man  was 
that  he  was  a  "progressive." 

The  Parting  of  the  Ways 

Times  change,  and  so  do  men  when  they  can 
be  persuaded  to  think.  There  was  a  prophetic 
and  providential  line  of  lineal  descendants  from 
Alexander  Campbell,  Number  Two,  of  the  Mil- 
lennial Harbinger,  Lunenburgh  letter,  and  the 
presidential  chair  of  the  American  Christian  Mis- 
sionary Society.  Men  of  the  type  of  Isaac  Er- 
rett,  Robert  Richardson,  W.  K.  Pendleton,  W. 
T.  Moore,  J.  S.  Lamar,  Alexander  Procter,  Geo. 
W.  Longan,  and  others  of  similar  caliber,  broad- 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  85 


ly  intellectual  as  they  were  broadly  spiritual, 
were  in  the  true  prophetic  succession  from 
Thomas  Campbell  and  the  matured  and  fully  de- 
veloped Alexander  Campbell.  At  the  time  of 
the  death  of  the  Sage  of  Bethany  and  the  birth  of 
the  Christian  Standard,  these  events  occurred 
the  same  month,  March,  1866,  it  was  a  serious 
question  as  to  which  way  the  cat  was  going  to 
jump.  The  two  tendencies  had  reached  the  part- 
ing of  the  ways,  and  the  choice  lay  between 
hardening  into  a  legalistic  and  belligerent  sect,  or 
marching  into  the  upward  and  onward  way  of  a 
catholic  and  spiritual  interpretation  of  New 
Testament  religion. 

Isaac  Errett  was  called  to  the  kingdom  for 
such  a  time  as  this.  His  relation  to  the  Campbell 
movement  was  similar  to  Paul's  relation  to  the 
Christianity  of  Jesus  and  the  Holy  Spirit,  when 
he  saved  it  from  being  strangled  in  its  cradle  by 
Jewish  legalists,  and  buried  in  the  tomb  of  a  de- 
cadent Leviticism,  and  set  it  in  the  highway  of 
holiness  as  the  faith  of  mankind.  If  the  religion 
of  Jesus  needed  interpretation  and  re-adaptation 
to  changing  conditions  in  the  first  generation  of 
its  existence,  it  is  not  strange  that  reform 
wrought  by  human  hands  should  need  the  touch 
of  reconstruction  and  fresh  leadership  in  its  sec- 
ond generation.  When  a  forward  step  is  taken, 
or  changing  readjustments  occur,  the  old  battle 


86 


MAKERS  AND  HOLDERS  OF 


for  freedom  of  thought  and  action  has  to  be 
fought  over  again.  New  religious  movements 
reach  finaUty  and  crystalUze  in  less  than  a  gen- 
eration. They  fought  for  liberty  to  overthrow 
the  old  order  and  gained  it,  but  they  will  not 
grant  a  similar  privilege  to  their  contemporaries 
and  those  who  come  after  them.  The  last  word 
has  been  spoken  and  woe  be  to  the  man  who 
dares  to  speak  another — he  must  be  prepared  to 
take  the  consequences. 

One  of  his  first  efforts  was  to  break  up  the 
cr)'stallization  into  which  the  cause  was  rapidly 
drifting.  The  tendency  to  externalize  Christian- 
ity by  spelling  it  out  in  institutions  and  writing 
it  into  abstract  propositions,  supported  by  texts 
of  Scripture,  superficially  interpreted,  was  de- 
plored. We  were  inclined  to  forget  the  impor- 
tant distinction  so  carefully  drawn  by  the  Camp- 
bells between  faith  and  opinion,  fact  and  specula- 
tion, experience  and  dogma.  The  disposition  to 
lead  people  out  of  the  synagogue,  not  for  lack  of 
faith,  or  any  deficiency  in  their  experience  of  the 
grace  of  God,  but  for  paltry  differences  of  opin- 
ion, of  little  importance  in  themselves,  was  not 
esteemed  a  part  of  the  primitive  Christianity  for 
whose  restoration  we  were  proudly  contending. 
The  age  of  polemics  and  dogmatic  literalism  did 
not  end  with  Isaac  Errett  and  the  day  of  his  edi- 
torship of  the  Christian  Standard,  but  a  better 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  87 


and  broader  spirit  began  to  characterize  our  lit- 
erature and  the  attitude  of  our  people  towards 
other  religious  bodies. 

"What  Is  Sectarianism?" 

Perhaps  the  most  illuminating  contribution 
ever  made  to  a  Disciple  periodical  was  the  article 
written  by  the  editor  of  the  Standard  to  Moore's 
Christian  Quarterly  entitled,  "What  is  Sectari- 
anism?" This  essay  was  a  masterpiece  of  exposi- 
tion, throwing  as  it  did  a  flood  of  light  on  the 
fundamental  principles  of  the  restoration  cause. 
It  was  the  Declaration  and  Address  revised  and 
brought  up  to  date,  another  stage  of  evolution 
brought  in,  by  the  operation  of  the  law  of  pro- 
gressive development.  It  had  been  the  custom 
to  invite  men  and  women  to  unite  with  us  on 
the  Bible  and  the  Bible  alone  as  the  religion  of 
Protestants.  This,  of  course,  was  an  invitation 
to  union  on  the  basis  of  our  interpretation  of  cer- 
tain portions  of  the  Bible,  a  foundation  no  more 
adequate  or  satisfactory  than  the  creeds  proposed 
by  the  founders  of  other  religious  bodies.  No 
human  interpretation  of  literary  documents,  in- 
spired or  uninspired,  could  be  made  the  founda- 
tion of  the  church  or  a  basis  of  the  reunion  of 
the  churches.  Walter  Scott's  Christology,  based 
on  the  inspired  confession  at  Csesarea  Philippi, 


88 


MAKERS  AND  MOLDBRS  OF 


was  farther  expounded  and  applied  in  some  of 
its  most  important  implications.  The  "rock"  on 
which  the  church  was  to  be  erected  was  not  a 
proposition  or  an  institution,  but  a  person,  and 
that  person  was  Christ  himself.  The  divinity  and 
personality  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  the  object  of 
faith,  the  power  of  salvation,  the  foundation  of 
the  church,  the  basis  of  Christian  union,  the  in- 
spiration of  the  Christian  life,  the  essence  of  the 
Christian  religion,  constitutes  the  rallying  center 
of  all  those  in  every  place  who  call  upon  His 
name.  Other  things,  if  in  any  way  vital,  may  go 
into  the  structure,  but  not  into  the  foundation. 
The  Disciples  have  often  been  spoken  of  as  creed- 
less,  but  this  is  a  serious  misapprehension  of  our 
position.  Creedlessness  is  not  one  of  our  limita- 
tions. The  Bible  is  a  source  of  spiritual  knowl- 
edge, a  practical  rule  in  the  guidance  of  our  lives, 
but  Christ  is  the  creed  of  Christianity,  the  creed 
that  needs  no  revision,  and  no  apology.  If  the 
Disciples,  at  any  time,  have  proposed  a  theory 
of  primitive  Christianity  and  the  ancient  order 
of  things  as  the  basis  of  unity,  they  have  been  as 
much  mistaken  as  others  who  have  offered  hu- 
man theories  for  the  fact  of  Christ.  Having  no 
claim  to  inerrancy,  above  other  people,  it  is  prob- 
able that  some  things  have  gone  into  the  founda- 
tion that  belonged  elsewhere,  but  at  the  same 
time  steady  progress  is  being  made  towards  the 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  89 


realization  of  the  ideal  of  unity  in  and  on  the 
Son  of  Gk)d  and  Son  of  man,  alone. 

Approved  by  Present  Day  Leaders  of  Thought 

To  those  of  us  who  sat  at  the  feet  of  Isaac  Er- 
rett  and  other  great  teachers  of  the  time,  it  is  a 
matter  of  intense  gratification  that  the  profound- 
est  and  most  up-to-date  thinking  of  these  modern 
days  is  falling  into  line  with  the  Christological 
position  of  our  restoration  cause.  A  notable 
book  has  just  appeared  in  Germany,  from  the 
pen  of  Dr.  Sapper,  one  of  the  great  thinkers  and 
scholars  of  the  Fatherland,  entitled,  "The  New 
Protestantism,"  in  which  he  repeats  and  ampli- 
fies with  signal  ability  and  force,  the  thesis  of  the 
great  Quarterly  article  to  which  I  am  referring 
in  this  paper.  He  declares  in  refreshing  Disciple 
style  that  theological  questions  are  being  pushed 
into  a  secondary  place,  and  it  is  the  work  of  the 
leaders  of  the  New  Protestantism  to  define  and 
lay  down  those  principles  of  evangelical  religion 
which  unite  rather  than  divide  Christians.  He 
then  reaches  for  the  milk  of  the  cocoanut  in  this 
declaration :  "All  that  is  necessary  is  contained 
in  the  formulary  belief  in  Jesus  Christ  as  our  Re- 
deemer. This  is  the  essence  of  the  Christian  re- 
ligion, and  there  is  no  other  essence." 

Arthur  Bransewetter,  a  careful  and  temperate 
writer  and  able  reviewer,  recognizes  this  and 


90 


MAKERS  AND  MOLDERS  OF 


admits  that  Sapper's  book  is  directed  to  unite 
Christians  in  all  that  is  great  and  essential  in 
their  religion.  "We  must,"  says  Bransewetter, 
"under  all  circumstances  and  at  any  price  find  a 
central  point  around  which  we  can  congregate," 
and  that  point  is  the  personality  of  Jesus  Christ, 
our  Brother  and  our  Redeemer. 

Dr.  Newton  Marshall,  one  of  the  most  brilliant 
and  scholarly  preachers  in  England,  who  died  re- 
cently at  the  early  age  of  forty,  insisted  in  some 
of  his  last  utterances  "that  Christianity  was  cen- 
tral to  all  religions,  and  a  personal  Christ  was 
the  central  fact  of  Christianity." 

The  people  who  have  been  contending  for  a 
return  to  Christ  will  have  to  hurry  up  or  some 
of  these  outside  men  will  beat  them  to  a  full 
and  practical  application  of  our  divine  creed  to 
the  solution  of  the  problems  of  unity  and  the 
world's  redemption.  .  One  of  the  most  vital  ques- 
tions growing  out  of  the  contention  for  the  cen- 
trality  and  fundamentality  of  Jesus  as  prophet, 
priest,  and  king,  was  the  exclusion  of  things  that 
did  not  belong  to  the  "essence"  and  the  inclusion 
of  things  that  did.  That,  indeed,  is  the  problem 
of  the  New  Protestantism  of  which  Sapper 
speaks.  One  of  the  first  things  to  be  considered 
is  the  terms  of  Christian  fellowship  and  brother- 
hood, things  that  must  be  believed  and  done  in 
this  new  reign  of  God  over  the  lives  of  men. 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  91 


We  must  penetrate  to  the  essence  of  what  the 
personality  of  Jesus  incarnates,  "the  life  of  God 
in  the  soul  of  man."  According  to  the  testimony 
of  Christ  himself  and  that  of  his  inspired  apos- 
tles, two  things  only  are  indispensable,  faith  in 
Christ  as  Saviour,  and  obedience  to  Him  as  Lord. 
In  the  nature  of  things  the  forms  of  religion  do 
not  and  can  not  belong  to  its  essence.  Institu- 
tional and  sacramental  religion  belongs  at  best 
to  the  category  of  expression,  not  to  that  of  sub- 
stance or  the  things  expressed.  On  the  preach- 
ing of  the  apostles  they  required  nothing  of  men 
but  belief  in  Christ,  the  human  life  of  God,  and 
submission  to  the  eternal  law  of  righteousness, 
of  which  he  was  the  manifestation.  As  long  as 
men  maintained  the  integrity  of  their  faith  in 
Jesus  and  their  loyalty  to  him  as  the  Son  of 
God,  they  were  sound  in  the  faith  and  mem- 
bers of  his  body,  the  church.  On  these  simple 
conditions  men  came  in  and  stayed  in  regardless 
of  their  opinions  and  speculations  on  a  thousand 
questions,  not  affecting  attachment  and  devotion 
to  Jesus  the  Christ  of  God. 

Mr.  Errett's  Statement  of  the  Restoration  Plea 

Mr.  Errett  thus  sums  up  the  restoration  plea : 
1.    "It  insists  on  faith  in  Jesus  as  the  Mes- 
siah, the  Son  of  God,  as  the  only  condition  of  ad- 


92  MAKERS  AND  MOLDERS  OF 


mission  to  baptism  and  membership  in  the 
church." 

2.  "It  enjoins  obedience  to  Jesus,  the  Head 
of  the  Church,  as  the  only  condition  of  fellow- 
ship in  the  church." 

3.  "It  advocates  the  union  of  all  believers  on 
these  two  considerations :  Faith  in  Jesus ;  obedi- 
ence to  Jesus — thus  letting  party  names  and  or- 
ganizations and  creeds  give  place  to  a  spiritual 
brotherhood  which,  possessed  of  whatever  di- 
versity of  opinion  or  of  practice  outside  the  sim- 
ple teachings  of  the  New  Testament,  shall  be 
one  in  faith  and  in  character  as  the  followers  of 
the  Lord  Jesus  Christ." 

In  no  sphere  of  influence  did  Isaac  Errett  ex- 
hibit more  wisdom  and  usefulness  than  in  the 
realm  of  liberty,  tolerance,  and  expediency.  "In 
all  matters,"  said  he,  "outside  of  faith  in  Christ 
and  obedience  to  him,  there  were  two  regulations. 
First,  no  one  was  allowed  to  judge  his  brother. 
Every  one  was  at  liberty  to  follow  his  own  best 
judgment,  responsible  only  to  God.  Second,  if 
this  liberty  was  found,  in  the  exercise,  to  work 
to  the  injury  of  any  brother,  however  weak,  or 
to  disturb  the  peace  and  harmony  of  the  church, 
they  were  taught  to  waive  their  rights  and  re- 
strain their  liberties,  in  loving  deference  to  the 
prejudices  or  weaknesses  of  their  brethren.  The 
reader  is  referred  to  Romans  XIV  for  a  lumi- 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  93 


nous  exposition  of  the  Christian  law  of  love  in  its 
application  to  all  such  cases." 

Features  of  the  New  Testament  Church 

The  features  of  the  New  Testament  Church 
to  be  restored,  or  reproduced  in  our  time,  are 
first,  its  ecumenical  character.  It  was  the  holy 
catholic  church,  exhausted  by  no  sect  or  denom- 
ination, belonging  to  no  country,  nation,  or  class. 
Second,  its  universal  equality.  It  has  no  hier- 
archy, or  priestly  order.  It  is  a  great  spiritual 
brotherhood  bound  by  spiritual  ties  of  faith,  hope 
and  love,  and  depends  not  on  organization  for  its 
unity ;  its  unity  is  from  within,  and  not  without — 
unity  of  spirit,  and  not  a  mere  external  unity  of 
organization.  Third,  the  simplicity  and  brevity 
of  its  creed.  It  contained  but  one  article  of  faith. 
It  came  from  heaven.  "Thou  art  the  Christ,  the 
Son  of  the  living  Gk)d."  Fourth,  the  simple  bond 
of  fellowship  that  held  its  members  together. 
Devotion  to  Jesus  and  consecration  to  the  spirit 
of  love  and  obedience.  For  two  reasons  only 
could  men  and  women  be  rightfully  cut  off  from 
the  fellowship  of  the  saints ;  first,  for  denying  the 
Lord  that  bought  them,  thereby  renouncing  the 
divine  creed;  second,  for  persistent  disobedience 
to  the  authority  of  the  head  of  the  church.  If 
they  were  right  here,  no  matter  how  far  wrong 
they  might  be  in  anything  else,  their  fellowship 


94 


MAKERS  AND  MOLDERS  OF 


could  not  be  disturbed ;  if  they  were  wrong  here, 
no  matter  if  right  about  everything  else,  they 
forfeited  their  right  to  Christian  brotherhood  and 
were  delivered  over  to  the  world. 

The  Ideal  New  Testament  Church 

In  the  two  following  items  he  summed  up  his 
conception  and  interpretation  of  the  effort  to 
realize  the  ideal  Christianity  and  the  ideal  church 
of  the  New  Testament. 

1.  "We  must  guard,  with  uncompromising 
integrity,  the  essentials  of  this  plea,  namely,  faith 
in  the  Lord  Jesus,  and  obedience  to  him  in  all 
things  clearly  taught  in  his  word. 

2.  "We  must  carefully  guard,  and  with  an 
equally  uncompromising  faithfulness  to  principle, 
against  all  attempts  to  coerce  unity,  either  in  re- 
gard to  inferential  truths  or  matters  of  expedi- 
ency. That  is  to  say,  while  insisting  on  loyal- 
ty to  Jesus,  we  must  allow  every  man  to  be  loyal 
to  himself  in  all  things  not  expressly  commanded 
or  taught,  and  regard  this  liberty  as  his  right  and 
not  as  our  gift."  


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  95 


MOSES  E.  LARD 

Prophet  of  Radicalism,  Literalism  and  Con- 
servatism in  the  Second  Generation 
of  the  Reformation  Movement 


AS  thinker,  writer,  preacher,  defender  of 
the  faith,  mighty  advocate  and  propagan- 
dist of  the  new  cause  of  Christian  union,  few  men 
of  the  middle  period  equaled,  and  none  sur- 
passed, the  man  whose  name  stands  at  the  head 
of  this  article.  The  genius  of  Alexander  Camp- 
bell and  the  impelling  force  of  the  principles  he 
had  sent  out,  as  a  bugle  call  to  the  churches,  drew 
around  him  in  Bethany  College  a  group  of  young 
men  of  superior  talents  and  consuming  zeal,  the 
very  best  of  raw  material  for  the  making  of  able 
and  successful  ministers  of  the  word.  Like  our 
Lord's  "Winnowing  Sieve,"  spoken  of  by  Prof. 
Seely  in  his  brilliant  "Ecce  Homo,"  the  sieving 
and  winnowing  process  sifts  out  the  light  ma- 
terial and  retains  the  best  of  the  wheat  in  the 
first  and  second  generations  of  a  new  cause.  The 
men  who  were  trained  by  Alexander  Campbell, 
like  the  old  students  of  the  great  Agassiz,  always 


96 


MAKERS  AND  HOLDERS  OF 


speak  of  him  in  the  glow  of  a  passionate  enthusi- 
asm, indicating  a  capacity  for  the  understand- 
ing and  appreciation  of  genius  not  always  to  be 
distinguished  from  genius  itself. 

Great  Men  of  Our  Second  Period 

Great  men  multiply  themselves  in  other 
men,  a  kind  of  self-multiplication  by  in- 
spiration. For  a  whole  generation  and  more 
a  strong  force  of  men  of  capacity  and  per- 
sonality went  out  from  Bethany,  who  give 
to  the  Christian  Union  Reformation  a  per- 
manent place  among  the  religious  forces  of 
the  world.  Of  these  captains  of  a  new  spir- 
itual industry,  with  no  less  an  ambition  than 
the  reunion  of  Christendom  on  a  divine  basis, 
were  such  men  as  Dr.  Robert  Richardson, 
W.  K.  Pendleton,  C.  L.  Loos,  Robert  Graham, 
Moses  E.  Lard,  John  W.  McGarvey,  J.  S. 
Lamar,  W.  T.  Moore,  L.  B.  Wilkes,  William 
Baxter,  John  Shackelford,  Henry  Haley, 
Joseph  King;  and  besides  these  other  men  of 
light  and  leading,  who  came  under  the  in- 
fluence and  teaching  of  the  illustrious  head  of 
Bethany  College,  Isaac  Errett,  L.  L.  Pinker- 
ton,  Robert  Milligan,  Dr.  W.  H.  Hopson,  and 
others  of  both  classes,  too  numerous  to  men- 
tion here. 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  97 


Moses  Lard,  Preacher 

A  book  of  surpassing  interest  and  impor- 
tance to  the  Disciples  might  be  written  on 
these  representative  men  of  the  second  stage 
in  the  evolution  of  our  religious  movement. 
For  our  present  purpose,  only  three  or  four 
of  these  leaders  can  be  considered,  and  they 
as  types  of  personality  and  teaching  ability 
characteristic  of  the  period.  Moses  E.  Lard 
represented  a  phase  of  the  Disciple  reforma- 
tion, which  has  changed  since  his  day,  and  we 
need  to  know  something  of  the  background 
out  of  which  these  changes  have  been  pro- 
ceeding. As  these  articles  are  not  primarily 
biographical,  we  cannot  linger  over  the  de- 
tails of  his  personal  life  in  the  development  of 
his  character,  as  interesting  and  valuable  as 
these  would  be.  We  must  begin  with  him  in 
the  maturity  of  his  powers,  in  the  midst  of 
his  career,  as  a  great  advocate  of  our  reforma- 
tory principles. 

As  a  preacher  he  had  few  equals,  and  no 
superiors,  among  his  contemporaries.  I  have 
heard  nearly  all  of  the  supreme  masters  of 
the  pulpit  in  the  English  speaking  world,  in 
the  last  generation  and  a  half,  and  I  have 
never  heard  a  better  preacher  than  Moses  E. 
Lard. 

Dr.  Winthrop  H.  Hopson,  Lard's  greatest 


98 


MAKERS  AND  MOLDERS  OF 


rival  for  pulpit  supremacy  among  the  Dis- 
ciples at  the  time,  was  once  asked,  which  was 
the  better  preacher,  himself  or  Moses  Lard. 
The  answer  was,  "Up  to  thirty  sermons  Lard 
can  beat  anybody,  after  that,  up  to  two  hun- 
dred and  fifty,  I  can  beat  him."  This  ques- 
tion had  brass  enough  in  it  on  the  part  of  the 
questioner,  but  the  answer  was  characteris- 
tic of  Dr.  Hopson,  and  a  pretty  accurate  judg- 
ment of  the  relative  merits  of  the  two 
preachers.  Like  Walter  Scott,  Lard  was  not 
always  at  his  best,  and  his  efTorts  therefore 
were  not  always  equal.  His  average  sermons 
as  a  pastor  did  not  measure  up  to  the  special 
eflforts  on  which  he  had  spent  his  life.  The 
major  part  of  his  ministry  was  spent  in  the 
evangelistic  field,  where  thirty  or  forty  great 
sermons  were  enough  to  give  his  work  the  highest 
efficiency,  in  a  day  when  great  preaching  was 
expected  and  appreciated.  The  labor  bestowed 
upon  these  "big  sermons"  was  colossal.  Such 
thoroughness  of  preparation,  such  mastery^  of 
material,  I  have  never  known  in  any  preacher. 
Every  phrase  and  sentence  was  fixed  and  set 
in  order,  and  so  familiar  that  his  mind  gam- 
boled and  bounded  over  the  matter  of  his 
discourse  with  a  freedom  that  gave  unusual 
vitality  and  power  to  his  utterances.  The  ef- 
fects were  sometimes  electrical. 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  99 


His  Oratorical  Power 

He  himself  gave  a  specific  instance  of  the 
overwhelming  power  of  these  tidal  waves  of 
eloquence.  He  does  not  refer  to  himself  as 
the  speaker,  but  he  was,  all  the  same : 

"The  breathless  stillness  of  the  great  crowd  was  at 
times  oppressive  and  painful.  You  felt  as  if  you 
wanted  to  see  the  crowd  move,  wanted  some  sign  of 
life — anything,  in  a  word,  to  relieve  the  petrified  scene 
before  you.  Had  you  entered  a  room  in  some  buried 
city  where  a  whole  audience  had  perished  in  an  instant, 
where  the  spirits  had  left  the  bodies  fresh  as  in  life, 
with  the  hue  on  the  cheek,  the  sparkle  in  the  eye,  and 
the  thought  on  the  brow,  little  more  could  you  have 
felt  the  awe-inspiring  stillness  than  in  the  silent  audi- 
ence before  you.  Only  on  one  occasion  did  the  emo- 
tion rise  so  high  as  to  be  overpowering.  At  the  close 
of  one  of  the  exhortations,  even  Mason  Summers  was 
mute.  He  could  not  sing  a  word.  Several  tried,  but 
all  failed.  So  overwhelming  was  the  feeling  that  every 
tongue  and  note  was  hushed.  Here  and  there  a  deep- 
drawn  breath  or  bursting  sigh  was  all  that  could  be 
heard.  Men  stood  and  looked  like  statues  weeping. 
First  one  and  then  another  would  rise  and  come  for- 
ward to  confess  his  faith  in  Christ,  until  twelve  strong 
men  sat  on  the  front  seat.  Such  a  sight  I  have  never 
seen  before ;  I  have  not  seen  it  since.  Glad  hearts  were 
in  that  audience  that  night,  but  far  too  full  to  talk. 
Men  thought  but  thought  in  silence;  felt,  but  never 
spoke.  Even  after  the  crowd  adjourned,  they  glided 
over  the  roads  homeward  through  the  deep  shadows  of 
primitive  woods  noiselessly,  as  if  they  had  been  troops 
of  spectres  marching  to  their  last  doom.  Even  Gill  for 
the  time  ceased  to  bray,  while  Huffaker  was  mute  and 
walked    clerically.     The    sects    grew    sullen,  bigots 


100 


MAKERS  AND  MOLDERS  OF 


gnashed,  even  the  wizard  spirit  of  Collet  Haynes  was 
dumb,  and  it  is  believed  that  any  rake  in  the  neighbor- 
hood might,  for  the  time,  have  climbed  one  of  Andy 
Fuller's  saplings  without  the  fear  of  presentment  to 
the  grand  jury." 

For  appreciation  of  local  references  to  char- 
acters like  Gill,  Huffaker  and  Collet  Haynes, 
the  reader  is  referred  to  "Solomon's  Confes- 
sion," in  "Lard's  Quarterly"  for  October, 
1864.  It  is  worth  looking  up  if  one  has  access 
to  it. 

The  Story  of  the  Pioneer 

I  have,  myself,  witnessed  scenes  in  the  preach- 
ing of  this  great  pulpiteer  similar  to  the  one  de- 
scribed, as  occurring  at  Haynesville,  Mo.  I  have 
seen  great  audiences,  when  the  invitation  was 
given,  sit  paralyzed,  apparently  unable  to  move 
hand  or  foot  or  faculty  of  the  mind.  Not  in- 
frequently an  exhortation  had  to  be  delivered  by 
some  one  else,  to  liberate  the  forces  of  reaction 
and  bring  the  people  back  to  consciousness  of 
their  power  to  sing  or  walk  forward  to  make  the 
good  confession.  No  speaker  of  my  knowledge 
could  bring  as  many  handkerchiefs  into  requisi- 
tion, or  make  people  sob  aloud  as  if  their  hearts 
would  break.  I  witnessed,  as  many  others  did, 
an  unforgetable  incident,  in  connection  with  the 
delivery  of  his  graphic  and  thrilling  sermon  on 
the  Wilderness  Temptation  of  our  Lord.  Speak- 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  101 


ing  of  the  suffering  of  the  hunger-lust  of  a  forty 
days'  fast  and  the  human  impossibility  of  it  be- 
yond fourteen  days,  without  miraculous  inter- 
position, he  drew  an  illustration  from  the  expe- 
rience of  a  Missouri  hunter,  from  whose  lips  he 
had  heard  the  story. 

This  pioneer  tiller  of  the  soil  was  in  the  habit 
of  traveling  a  distance  from  home,  at  least  once 
a  year,  on  a  hunting  expedition.  On  this  partic- 
ular forage  after  wild  game  he  had  taken  with 
him,  his  horse,  his  little  son,  his  faithful  dog,  and 
a  partial  supply  of  food.  After  a  camping  place 
had  been  selected,  the  tent  put  up,  and  other 
preparations  made,  the  hunter  was  priming  his 
gun,  when  it  accidentally  went  oflf,  the  bullet 
tearing  into  his  body  a  serious  if  not  fatal  wound. 
Far  from  help  and  home  the  situation  was  des- 
perate if  not  irremediable.  There  was  nothing 
left  but  for  the  boy  to  take  the  horse  and  try  to 
find  his  way  back  home  to  tell  what  had  hap- 
pened, and  if  possible  to  bring  or  send  relief. 
The  little  fellow  was  solemnly  charged  not  to  try 
to  guide  the  horse,  but  to  drop  the  reins  on  the 
animal's  neck  and  trust  to  his  instincts  of  direc- 
tion to  find  the  way.  He  had  not  traveled  very 
far  when  he  began  to  feel  that  the  horse  had 
made  a  mistake.  He  seized  the  reins  and  turned 
him  in  the  opposite  direction  and — was  lost.  If 


102 


MAKERS  AND  HOLDERS  OF 


I  remember  correctly  it  was  more  than  a  week 
before  he  reached  his  home. 

In  the  meantime  the  wound  was  Httle  better 
and  the  suffering  man  could  not  supply  himself 
with  food.  Morning  and  evening  the  faithful 
dog  went  out  on  the  surrounding  hills  and 
howled  by  the  hour  that  relief  might  come  to  his 
dying  master.  No  relief  came.  On  the  morning 
of  the  fourteenth  day  the  dog  came  in  for  the 
last  time  and,  lying  down  by  his  human  friend, 
he  seemed  to  say.  Well,  master,  I  have  done  my 
best,  I  hope  relief  will  yet  come.  If  it  does  not 
we  will  starve  and  die  together.  The  wounded 
man,  in  a  fit  of  hunger  and  desperation,  seized 
his  knife  and  struck  his  heroic  and  devoted  com- 
panion dead  at  his  feet.  As  he  lay  there  welter- 
ing in  the  blood  of  a  tragic  sacrifice,  specks  ap- 
peared on  the  horizon  like  birds,  which  turned 
out  on  nearer  approach  to  be  men  on  horses ;  a 
search-party  had  been  organized  to  bring  relief 
to  their  unfortunate  neighbor.  The  hunter  was 
rescued  and  recovered,  but  he  never  forgave 
himself  the  tragic  end  of  the  more  than  human 
friend,  the  faithful  dog. 

I  have  not  told  this  story  half  as  well  as  Lard 
told  it,  and  perhaps  some  of  the  details  are  not 
correctly  stated,  but  this  is  the  tale  substantially 
as  he  related  it,  and  the  effect  was  magical  and 
unforgetable.    Tears  literally  rained  down  the 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  103 


faces  of  the  people,  and  they  wept  aloud  all  over 
the  house.  The  speaker  paused  thirty  seconds 
or  more  and  then  said,  in  substance,  as  far  as  I 
can  recall  it  from  memory :  Yes,  when  I  tell  you 
of  the  accidental  wounding  of  a  hunter  and  the 
death  of  his  dog,  you  shed  copious  tears,  and 
weep  like  your  last  friend  had  been  taken  from 
you,  but  when  I  speak  of  the  broken  heart  of  my 
Lord,  who  was  wounded  for  our  transgressions 
and  bruised  for  our  iniquities,  who  was  torn  and 
tortured  upon  the  accursed  tree,  without  a  rem- 
edy to  deaden  his  pains,  or  a  friendly  hand  to 
give  him  a  drink  of  water,  you  sit  unmoved  by 
the  world  tragedy  of  God's  dying  Son  on  the 
cross,  not  a  tear  falls,  not  a  sigh  or  sob  is  heard, 
not  one  heart  is  broken — brethren,  what  do  you 
think  of  yourselves  ? 

At  the  moment  of  the  falling  of  this  thunder- 
bolt the  brethren  were  not  thinking  much  of 
themselves.  Other  tears  were  shed,  but  they 
M'ere  tears  of  humiliation  when  the  fact  was 
thrust  into  their  consciousness  that  they  had  al- 
lowed familiarity  with  the  most  moving  story 
ever  told  to  rob  it  of  its  power  to  touch  the 
heart  and  move  the  soul. 

Spontaneous  Appreciation 

"Old  Uncle  Si  Collins,"  as  he  was  called, 
an    eccentric    but    godly    and  consecrated 


104 


MAKERS  AND  MOWERS  OF 


pioneer  preacher,  of  Richmond,  Ky.,  who  was  in 
the  habit  of   standing  on    the   margin  of  a 
stream  or  pool  when  the  holy  ordinance  of 
baptism  was  being  administered,  as  the  can- 
didate was  being  lowered  beneath  the  yield- 
ing wave,  would  shout,  "Farewell,  vain  world, 
I'm  going  home" — this  grand  old  man  was  a 
great  admirer  of  Moses  E.  Lard.    He  would 
ride  many  miles  on  horseback,  over  dirt  roads, 
in  all  kinds  of  weather  to  hear  his  favorite 
preacher.    Once  when  Lard  was  holding  a 
protracted  meeting  in  Winchester,  old  Uncle 
Si  sat  by  the  side  of  his  friend  William  Azbill, 
listening  to  one  of  the  speaker's  greatest  ef- 
forts.   The  orator  was  in  one  of  his  happiest 
moods.    As  he  reached  for  one  of  his  most 
telling  climaxes,  it  was  evident  that  Uncle 
Si  was  rapidly  filling  up.    He  leaned  forward 
smiling  and  nodding  his  approval,  he  slapped 
his  knees,  he  clapped  his  hands,  and  when, 
like  Job's  friend,  he  had  reached  the  bursting 
point  and  could  contain  himself  no  longer, 
he  turned  half  way  round  in  his  seat,  brought 
down  his  open  hand  on  the  shoulder  of  his 
companion,  and  shouted  out  loud  in  meetin', 
"Brother  Bill,  isn't  he  a  sugar  stick!"    So  he 
was  in  these  great  sunbursts  of  sacred  elo- 
quence, in  which,  like  John  J.  Crittenden,  in 
a  different  field,  "he  could  beat  himself." 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  105 


Lard's  Fame  as  a  Writer 

His  fame  as  a  writer  was  scarcely  second 
to  his  reputation  as  a  preacher.  He  leaped 
suddenly  into  literary  and  polemical  renown 
one  morning,  when  his  book  entitled  "A  Re- 
view of  Campbellism  Examined"  came  out. 
Dr.  Jeremiah  B.  Jeter,  a  knight  of  the  quill  in 
Baptist  Israel,  indited  a  somewhat  preten- 
tious volume,  under  the  offensive  name  of 
"Campbellism  Examined."  This  book  was 
able  and  scholarly,  but  marred  by  serious 
misapprehension,  if  not  misrepresentation,  of 
the  reunion  plea.  Mr.  Campbell  began  a  re- 
view of  it  in  the  Millennial  Harbinger,  but 
being  unable  to  finish  the  job  through  press 
of  other  duties,  handed  the  Baptist  editor  and 
his  beloved  bantling  over  to  the  tender 
mercies  of  young  Lard,  then  a  recent  graduate 
of  Bethany  College.  The  "Review"  had  its 
limitations  in  the  temper  and  spirit  of  the  re- 
viewer, and  in  historical  knowledge  and  ex- 
egesis of  Scripture  on  a  few  points,  but  for 
the  chief  end  and  purpose  of  the  book,  noth- 
ing more  was  left  to  be  said.  The  opposi- 
tion suffered  overthrow  and  rout,  almost 
equal  to  annihilation,  calling  to  mind  the 
more  recent  parallel  of  Lambert's  Notes  on 
Ingersoll,  in  which  the  priest  so  completely 
annihilates  the  infidel  as  not  to  leave  two  tips 


I 


106 


MAKERS  AND  HOLDERS  Of 


of  tails  tied  together  and  a  little  fur,  reminders 
of  the  historic  battle  of  the  Kilkenny  cats. 
The  remorseless  logic  and  brilliant  rhetoric 
brought  to  bear  by  the  reviewer  in  the  defeat 
of  his  opponent,  was  freely  admitted  by  many 
Baptists,  who  deplored  the  consorious  and  un- 
charitable spirit  in  which  the  work  had  been 
done.  Years  later  Bro.  Lard  said  to  a  friend 
of  mine,  "If  I  had  left  out  the  caustic  and 
bitter  things  said  in  that  book  it  would  have 
been  much  stronger  and  certainly  more  Chris- 
tian." While  nothing  can  be  said  in  justifica- 
tion of  biting  sarcasm,  which  Thomas  Carlyle 
declared  was  the  language  of  the  devil,  some- 
thing can  be  said  in  palliation  of  the  of¥ense 
under  the  circumstances  in  which  the  Review 
of  "Campbellism  Examined"  was  written.  At 
that  time,  not  so  long  ago,  the  furnace  of 
theological  strife  was  heated  seven  times,  like 
the  one  through  which  the  Hebrew  children 
passed,  with  this  diflference :  four  men  who 
essayed  to  pass  through  the  former  came  out 
without  the  smell  of  fire  upon  their  garments ; 
whereas,  when  one  man  attempted  to  pass 
through  the  latter  when  Moses  E.  Lard  was 
fireman,  he  barely  managed  to  get  out  with 
the  smell  of  cooked  meat  and  burning  grease 
upon  his  skin ;  his  garments  had  gone  up  in 
smoke  and  flame.    The  time  had  not  then 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  107 


come  for  the  elimination  of  personalities,  ridi- 
cule and  caustic  observations  from  religious 
discussion.    It  has  now. 

Lard's  Quarterly 

Mr.  Lard's  literary  career  is  seen  to  best 
advantage  in  his  Quarterly,  published  during 
the  Civil  War.  It  ran  through  three  and  a 
half  volumes,  if  my  memory  avouches  cor- 
rectly. Its  peculiarity  was,  that  in  the  neigh- 
borhood of  three-fourths  of  its  contributions 
were  written  by  the  editor.  A  noteworthy 
and  pleasing  feature  of  this  characteristic 
publication  was  the  interspersing  of  many 
theological  essays  and  closely  reasoned  ser- 
mons with  racy  narratives,  vital  stories, 
epigrammatic  delineations  of  character,  lit  up 
here  and  there  with  touches  of  the  creative 
imagination  that  Charles  Dickens  and  Wil- 
liam Makepeace  Thackeray  would  have  found 
it  hard  to  excel.  The  editor  of  the  Quarterly 
was  a  matchless  story-teller.  He  possessed 
the  rare  gifts  of  narration  and  delineation 
combined.  Long  ago  such  stories  and  his- 
tories as  "My  First  Meeting,"  "Dick  and 
South  Point,"  "Solomon's  Confession,"  "My 
Church,"  and  a  ghost  story,  the  title  of  which 
I  have  forgotten,  and  a  few  other  choice 
selections   from   his    writings,   should  have 


108  MAKERS  AND  HOLDERS  OF 


been  gathered  into  a  volume  as  a  memorial 
to  the  genius  of  its  author.  The  New  York 
Ledger,  while  it  was  publishing  the  star 
papers  of  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  offered  the 
editor  of  the  Quarterly  five  thousand  dollars 
a  year  to  contribute  similar  stories  to  its 
pages.  Mr.  Lard  wisely  declined,  for  these 
productions  were  occasional  inspirations.  They 
could  not  have  been  made  to  order  with  the 
printer's  devil  standing  at  his  elbow. 

His  Bald  Literalism 

Many  of  his  great  sermons  were  written 
out  in  the  form  of  theological  essays  and  pub- 
lished in  the  Quarterly.  These  editorial  con- 
tributions to  the  periodical  had  the  same  verve 
and  flash,  concentrated  power,  note  of  dog- 
matic certainty,  and  bald  literalism  of  inter- 
pretation that  characterized  the  spoken  ser- 
mons. Rarely,  indeed,  if  ever,  has  any  man 
been  able  to  literalize  the  glowing  symbolism 
of  Jewish  apocalypses,  and  dramatize  them 
with  such  lurid  vividness  as  prophetic  descrip- 
tions of  historic  events  soon  to  materialize  in 
the  affairs  of  men.  Everything  was  literal, 
everything  that  John  said  in  an  apocalyptic 
drama  was  going  to  happen  just  as  John  said 
it.  While  this  method  yielded  realistic  and 
dramatic  sermon  material,  as  an  effort  to  in- 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  109 


terpret  spiritual  prophecy  it  was  distinctly 
bad.  In  his  sermon  on  the  New  Birth  in  the 
Living  Pulpit,  Bro.  Lard  occupies  several 
pages  in  arguing  that  water  in  John  3  :5  means 
water.  Of  course  it  does,  but  does  a  liquid 
used  to  describe  the  spiritual  change  of  re- 
pentance, mean  nothing  but  a  liquid?  It  must 
be  said,  however,  in  justice  to  this  good  man, 
that  the  spiritual  and  ethical  elements  were 
not  lacking  in  either  his  preaching  or  his  life. 
It  is  one  of  the  most  precious  of  God's  prov- 
idences that  a  man's  mental  concepts  may 
be  mistaken  in  many  things,  his  theology  all 
askew,  when  his  heart  is  right  in  the  sight  of 
God,  his  essential  message  is  not  stripped  of 
its  saving  power. 

His  Stand  for  Closed  Communion 

It  was  during  the  middle  period  or  second 
generation  of  our  Disciple  history  that  many 
of  the  important  problems  of  the  new  move- 
ment had  to  be  threshed  out,  and,  if  possible, 
solved.  The  only  method  of  threshing  out 
things  which  can  find  acceptance  among  a  free 
people  is  the  method  of  public  discussion.  It 
was  said  of  a  polemic  preacher  of  that  era 
that  he  always  preached  from  one  text,  a  text 
found  in  one  of  the  minor  prophets :  "Arise 
and  thresh."    In  this  particular  instance  the 


110  MAKERS  AND  MOLDBRS  OF 


preacher,  who  was  always  ready  for  '"spute," 
threshed  "the  sects,"  but  we  found  it  neces- 
sary at  times  to  thresh  one  another,  that  we 
might  all  find  our  bearing  together.  The 
most  memorable  internal  controversy  of  the 
period  was  on  the  communion  question  in  the 
pages  of  the  Millennial  Harbinger,  Lard's 
Quarterl}^,  and  the  American  Christian  Re- 
view. Mr.  Lard  stated  the  issue  interroga- 
tively:   "Do  the  Unimmersed  Commune?" 

In  an  elaborate  and  closely  reasoned  article 
he  answered  this  question  in  the  negative.  In 
this  attitude  of  a  mechanical  and  ceremonial 
interpretation  of  the  terms  of  fellowship  at 
the  Lord's  table,  he  was  joined  by  a  number 
of  our  strongest  men:  Geo.  W.  Elley,  L.  B. 
Wilkes,  Dr.  J.  W.  Cox,  and  Benj.  Franklin, 
of  the  American  Christian  Review.  The 
other  side  was  represented  by  such  scholarly 
and  spiritual  men  as  W.  K.  Pendleton,  Isaac 
Errett,  and  Dr.  Richardson  in  the  Harbinger, 
and  Thomas  Munnell  in  the  Quarterly.  Mr. 
Elley  thus  sententiously  and  catechetically 
puts  the  argument  for  the  support  of  the  doc- 
trine that  the  unimmersed  do  not  commune : 

1.  Can  any  person  be  a  Christian,  who  is 
not  in  Christ,  or  who  has  not  put  him  on? 

2.  If  not,  can  any  put  him  on  who  have 
not  been  baptized  "into  him?" 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  111 


3.  Can  any  one  be  free  from  sin  who  has 
not,  from  his  heart,  "obeyed  the  form  of  doc- 
trine" delivered  to  him  by  the  Holy  Spirit? 
If  not,  can  he  rightfully  be  allowed  to  break 
the  loaf  by  the  action  of  God's  church? 

4.  Can  an  unsaved  or  unpardoned  person 
be  allowed  to  sit  and  drink  the  Lord's  body 
and  blood  by  church  consent? 

5.  Is  baptism  demanded  of  penitents  in 
order  to  pardon  or  Sonship? 

All  of  these  questions  were  answered  in  the 
negative  except  the  last. 

If  Mr.  Elley's  restricted  communion  prem- 
ises are  admitted,  the  restriction  of  com- 
munion privileges  to  immersed  believers 
necessarily  follows.  The  trouble  was  his 
literal  and  legalistic  process  misinterpreted 
some  of  his  premises. 

Isaac  Erretf s  Stand 

Isaac  Errett,  who  contributed  a  brilliant 
series  of  articles  to  this  controversy  in  the 
pages  of  the  Millennial  Harbinger,  expressed, 
in  a  letter  to  Richard  Hawley,  the  conclusion 
which  has  prevailed  among  the  Disciples.  He 
said : 

"We  are  compelled,  therefore,  to  recognize  as  Chris- 
tians many  who  have  been  in  error  on  baptism,  but  who 
in  the  spirit  of  obedience  are  Christians  indeed.  (See 


112 


MAKERS  AND  MOLDERS  OF 


Rom.  2:28,  29.)  I  confess,  for  my  own  part,  did  I  un- 
derstand the  position  of  the  brethren  to  deny  this,  I 
would  recoil  from  my  position  among  them  with  utter 
disgust.  It  will  never  do  to  unchristianize  those  on 
whose  shoulders  we  are  standing,  and  because  of  whose 
previous  labors  we  are  enabled  to  see  some  truths  more 
clearly  than  they.  Yet  while  fully  according  to  them 
the  piety  and  Christian  standing  which  they  deserve, 
it  is  clear  that  they  are  in  great  error  on  the  question 
of  baptism — and  we  must  be  careful  not  to  compromise 
the  truth.  Our  practice,  therefore,  is  neither  to  invite 
nor  reject  particular  classes  of  persons,  but  to  spread 
the  table  in  the  name  of  the  Lord,  for  the  Lord's  peo- 
ple, and  allow  all  to  come  who  will,  each  on  his  own 
responsibility." 

It  remains  only  to  be  added  that  this  discus- 
sion was  conducted  on  both  sides  with  great 
ability  and  admirable  courtesy,  and  was,  once 
for  all,  determinative  of  our  relations  to  the 
Christian  people  of  the  churches  around  us. 

Lard's  O p position  to  Creeds 

Bro.  Lard's  opposition  to  human  creeds 
\vas  so  straight  as  to  lean  considerably  be- 
yond the  perpendicular.  His  fierce  assault  on 
the  harmless  "Synopsis,"  a  statement  of 
principles  written  by  Isaac  Errett,  for  public 
information,  is  a  case  in  point.  As  a  matter 
of  course  the  distinguished  editor  of  the  Quar- 
terly was  sublimely  unconscious  of  the  fact 
that  in  every  issue  of  his  paper  he  was  per- 
petrating a  creed,  and  many  creeds,  quite  as 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  113 


human  as  the  one  he  so  bitterly  assailed.  The 
first  sentence  of  his  criticism  has  acquired  a 
kind  of  historic  notoriety  on  account  of  the 
grimness  of  the  unconscious  humor  that  lurks 
in  it :  "There  is  not  a  sound  man  in  our  ranks 
who  has  seen  the  preceding  'Synopsis'  that 
has  not  felt  scandalized  by  it."  As  the  writer 
went  on,  the  humor  increased.  A  little  farther 
down  on  the  same  page  he  declared :  "When 
Aaron's  calf  came  out,  had  he  called  it  a  bird, 
still  all  Israel  seeing  it  stand  on  four  legs, 
with  horns  and  parted  hoofs,  would  have 
shouted,  a  calf,  a  calf,  a  calf." 

The  American  Christian  Review  joined  the 
Quarterly  in  the  racket  against  Isaac  Errett, 
as  arch-heretic  and  creed-maker,  which  caused 
W.  T.  Moore  in  his  "History  of  the  Disciples 
of  Christ,"  to  remark,  "Both  Mr.  Lard  and 
Benj.  Franklin  continued  to  emphasize  these 
infinitesimal  matters  until  it  looked  at  one 
time  as  if  the  whole  movement  might  be 
wrecked  by  an  undermining  of  microbes." 
While  this  microbic  activity  did  not  seriously 
affect  the  main  lines  of  the  movement,  it  did 
eat  the  bottom  out  of  the  organ  controversy. 
I  have  just  laid  down  a  volume  of  Lard's 
Quarterly  after  reading  his  article  on  "Instru- 
mental Music  in  Churches,  and  Dancing." 
Notwithstanding    my    familiarity    with  the 


114 


MAKERS  AND  HOLDERS  OF 


fierce  intolerance  of  that  controversial  age,  the 
consuming  heat,  and  domineering  dogmatism, 
implacable  intolerance  and  bitterness  of  that 
philippic  over  a  matter  so  incidental  and  small, 
I  am  almost  surprised.  We  can  hardly  help 
wondering  that  a  great  man  under  any  condi- 
tions or  combination  of  circumstances,  should 
fail  to  see  the  difiference  between  secondary 
and  insignificant  matters  and  the  loftiest 
fundamentals  in  the  religion  of  Christ.  That 
is  one  of  the  mysteries  of  sin  that  still  gives 
us  more  or  less  trouble.  At  the  same  time, 
when  we  take  into  account  the  tempera- 
ment and  environment  of  the  man  there  is  not 
much  to  wonder  at.  He  was  a  person  of 
marked  individuality,  great  intensity  of  con- 
viction, and  feelings  so  strong  as  to  be  easily 
fanned  into  a  flame.  As  to  the  settlement  of 
the  organ  strife,  the  microbes  kept  on  eating 
till  both  gable  ends  and  the  puncheon  floor  of 
the  question  fell  out  of  their  own  weight.  In 
the  face  of  preachers,  editors,  and  ancient 
elders  in  Israel,  the  people  quietly  put  the 
instrument  in,  as  they  had  done  long  before 
in  their  homes.  There  are  other  things  troub- 
ling our  scribes  the  rank  and  file  are  destined 
to  settle  in  the  same  way. 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  115 


Old  Age  Sweetens 

But  the  distinguished  editor  of  the  Quar- 
terly was  right  on  most  things,  and  concern- 
ing the  few  on  which  he  was  wrong  he  got 
right  before  he  died.  As  the  shadows  length- 
ened, and  his  western  sun  neared  the  horizon, 
he  added  sweetness  to  the  light  he  had  long 
possessed.  In  the  last  few  years  of  his  life 
his  mind  broadened  in  its  outlook,  his  soul 
deepened  in  its  consciousness  of  the  love  of 
God,  and  he  became  more  tolerant,  charitable 
and  sympathetic  than  he  had  been  in  the  heat 
of  the  strife  through  which  he  had  passed.  A 
year  or  two  before  his  death  he  said  to  his 
old  friend,  J.  S.  Withers,  of  Cynthiana,  Ky. : 
"If  I  had  my  life  to  live  over,  I  would  not 
preach  another  gospel,  but  I  would  preach  the 
same  gospel  in  a  difYerent  spirit.  I  would  not 
allow  myself  to  be  stranded  on  the  desert  of 
dogmatism  and  a  narrow  construction  of  the 
love  of  God,  but  I  would  preach  with  a  new 
vision  of  its  meaning,  that  'God  so  loved  the 
world  that  he  gave  his  only  begotten  Son, 
that  whosoever  believeth  in  him  should  not 
perish,  but  have  everlasting  life.'" 


116  MAKERS  AND  HOLDERS  OF 


WINTHROP  H.   HOPSON  AND 
GEORGE  W.  LONGAN 

Two  Representative  Types  of  Leadership  in 
the  Middle  Period  of  Our  History 


In  ever)'  movement  of  thought  and  Ufe  two 
distinct  and  variant  types  of  leadership  inevi- 
tably figure.  It  is  customary  to  speak  of  these, 
for  the  want  of  better  terms,  as  conserv-ative  and 
progressive ;  sometimes  varied  by  the  terms  re- 
actionary for  the  first  and  liberal  or  radical  for 
the  second.  These  words  will  do  well  enough 
in  a  loose,  general  way,  but  they  are  not  the  best 
of  descriptive  terms  that  could  be  chosen  with 
the  English  language  at  our  disposal.  A  more 
specific  and  discriminating  classification,  in  my 
judgment,  from  a  psychological  point  of  view, 
would  be  the  plain,  familiar  terms,  mechanical 
and  vital.  A  mechanical  intellect,  like  any  other 
machine,  is  an  organization ;  a  vital  mind  is  an 
organism.  They  both  have  energy^  and  motion, 
only  one  has  life  and  growth. 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  117 


The  Mechanistic  Brain 

A  mechanistic  brain  takes  in  ideas  as  a  dis- 
tended bladder  takes  in  beans,  or  a  vise  grips  a 
piece  of  wood.  Those  beans  roll  and  rattle,  be- 
coming harder  and  drier  in  the  process,  till  they 
rot,  and  the  bladder  falls  to  pieces  from  decay. 
Those  grains  of  wheat  fovmd  in  the  skull  of  an 
Egyptian  mummy  had  been  there  over  three 
thousand  years,  and  when  they  rained  down  and 
rattled  over  the  floor  of  the  British  Museum  they 
were  the  same  old  grains  of  wheat,  unchanged, 
entombed  in  their  bony  sepulchre  for  more  than 
thirty  centuries.  When  those  ancient  seeds  were 
gathered  up  from  the  floor  and  placed  in  the 
ground  they  germinated  and  grew  into  a  harvest 
of  wheat,  the  same,  and  yet  how  different !  The 
man  of  mechanical  turn  of  mind  takes  in,  with- 
out question,  the  ideas  of  his  early  teachers,, 
forms,  methods,  words,  and  all,  stores  these 
goods  away  in  the  warehouse  of  his  cranium, 
clamps  down  on  them  as  bladder,  vise  and 
Egyptian  skull  did  on  their  precious  contents, 
and  uses  them  unchanged  all  his  life  long,  never 
using  any  others. 

The  slightest  departure,  not  only  from  the  old 
conceptions,  but  from  the  old  and  well-worn 
phraseology,  is  looked  upon  with  grave  suspicion, 
if   not   with   apprehension   of   peril    for  the 


118  MAKERS  AND  MOLDERS  OF 


cause.  The  vital  understanding  sits  at  the  feet 
of  the  same  teachers,  feeds  on  the  same  pabulum, 
takes  in  the  same  conceptions  of  truth  and  right- 
eousness, but  they  root  themselves  in  his  mind, 
they  enter  into  his  consciousness,  they  hook  them- 
selves to  the  law  of  evolution  and  he  begins  to 
grow,  and  the  products  of  this  growth  in  life  and 
character  are  a  part  of  himself,  they  are  instinct 
with  life  and  power,  they  are  not  dead. 

A  mechanical  theologian  goes  into  the  house 
of  his  soul,  locks  the  doors,  fastens  the  windows, 
draws  the  blinds,  and  thereby  serves  notice  to  the 
sun  that  no  more  light  or  ventilation  is  wanted  or 
needed  in  that  house. 

The  Vital-Minded  Religionist 

The  vital-minded  religionist  leaves  the  door 
unlocked,  opens  the  windows,  puts  up  the  blinds, 
and  says  all  the  air  and  light  I  can  get  in  here  is 
welcome  on  these  premises.  Our  reformatory 
cause  has  had  conspicuous  instances  of  these 
types,  and  many  variations  of  them,  in  its  educa- 
tors and  ministers.  Two  cases  of  these  tempera- 
mental diflferences  have  already  been  marked  in 
the  personalities  of  Isaac  Errett  and  Moses  E. 
Lard.  Two  others  as  widely  differentiated  in 
type.  Dr.  Winthrop  H.  Hopson  and  George  W. 
Longan,  are  to  be  the  subjects  of  our  present 
study;  to  be  followed  by  a  paper  on  John  \X. 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  119 


McGarvey  and  Alexander  Procter,  almost  ex- 
treme examples  of  the  types  of  which  I  have 
been  speaking. 

My  sole  object  in  grouping  our  teaching  around 
the  personality  of  its  historic  leaders  is  to  give 
it  interest  and  verisimilitude.  Personality  is  the 
finality  of  God's  creation,  and  it  is  pretty  much 
the  only  thing  in  which  humanity  has  any  vital 
concern.  The  great  Joseph  Parker  once  re- 
marked, when  he  had  read  a  book  on  theology 
he  hastened  to  the  story  of  the  prodigal  son,  to 
take  the  bad  taste  out  of  his  mouth.  This  master- 
piece of  our  Lord's  parables  had  as  much  theol- 
ogy in  it  as  any  page  of  the  other  book  on  Sys- 
tematic Divinity.  It  had  also  thinking,  feeling, 
acting,  talking,  personality  in  it,  and  that  wins 
any  day  against  the  discussion  of  abstract  prop- 
ositions. These  biographical  touches  are  added 
only  to  make  the  discussion  vital  and  of  human 
interest. 

/.    DR.  WINTHROP  H.  HOPSON 

Dr.  Hopson,  to  speak  of  him  first,  was  a  great 
preacher,  a  magnetic  speaker,  a  man  of  attractive 
and  commanding  appearance  in  the  pulpit.  His 
thought  was  virile  and  clear,  his  language  af- 
fluent and  copious,  his  voice  was  mellow  and 
agreeable,  and  his  power  to  make  himself  fell 
and  understood  was  remarkable.    As  a  sermon 


120 


MAKERS  AND  MOLDERS  OF 


architect  and  builder  he  had  no  equal  among 
the  Disciples,  who  were  rich  in  great  preachers 
of  sermons.  His  powers  of  generalization,  clas- 
sification, and  logical  arrangement  were  far  be- 
yond the  ordinary.  In  fact,  his  ideals  of  ser- 
monic  perfection  were  such  that  he  sometimes 
sacrificed  accuracy  of  statement  to  harmonious 
arrangement  in  his  sermon  outlines.  His  cele- 
brated sermon  of  "The  Three-fold  Aspects  of 
Divine  Truth"'  is  a  good  instance  of  this  homi- 
letic  peculiarity  of  the  Doctor  and  will  also  serve 
as  an  illustration  of  his  conception  of  the  way 
of  salvation,  a  theme  on  which  the  Disciples  of 
his  time  were  particularly  strong. 

"Three-fold  Aspects  of  Divine  Tntth" 

I  heard  him  preach  this  sermon  twice,  and  ac- 
cording to  my  watch,  it  took  him  two  hours  and 
thirty  minutes  each  time  to  deliver  it.  He  oc- 
cupied the  first  hour  in  gathering  up  and  mar- 
shaling in  solid  array  the  sacred  threes  of  the 
Bible.  Three  persons  in  the  trinity ;  Father,  Son, 
and  Holy  Spirit;  three  kingdoms,  nature,  grace 
and  glory;  three  dispensations  of  religion,  patri- 
archal, Jewish  and  Christian;  three  crowns,  the 
crown  of  life,  the  crown  of  righteousness  and  the 
crown  of  glory ;  three  conditions  of  salvation, 
faith,  repentance  and  baptism,  and  so  on,  I  forget 
how  many  triads  there  were. 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  121 


This  proposition  was  followed  by  one  still 
more  elaborate,  in  which  it  was  affimied  that 
these  trinities  were  all  ^.limactic.  In  every  in- 
stance the  third  member  was  the  consummation 
and,  therefore,  of  more  fundamental  importance 
than  either  of  the  other  two.  The  Holy  Spirit 
being  the  last  of  the  Godhead  to  participate  in 
the  work  of  human  redemption,  the  culminating 
agency  in  the  divine  process  of  salvation  was  of 
more  importance  than  the  Father  or  the  Son. 
The  Christian  dispensation,  the  sunlight  age  of 
revelation,  being  last  and  immeasurably  the 
greatest,  was  more  important  than  the  starlight 
and  moonlight  economies  of  patriarchs  and 
Jews.  It  was  a  self-evident  statement  of  truth 
that  the  crown  of  glory  exceeded  in  brilliancy 
and  greatness  the  crowns  of  life  and  righteous- 
ness. By  the  time  he  had  reached  this  point,  and 
perhaps  before,  even  as  a  callow  youth  in  my 
teens,  I  began  to  see  a  breaker  ahead,  I  waxed 
a  little  nervous  and  wondered  if  the  great 
Doctor,  with  all  his  ingenuity  in  making  things 
fit,  and  his  dogmatic  boldness,  would  march  up 
to  his  logic,  and  face  the  music  when  he  came  to 
baptism !  Well,  he  did.  Without  a  quiver  or  a 
tremor  of  hesitation  or  trepidation,  he  marched 
boldly  up,  affirming  flatfootedly  that  baptism  as 
the  consummating  act  of  obedience  in  the  proc- 
ess of  salvation,  and  the  point  where  the  bless- 


122  MAKERS  AND  HOLDERS  OF 


ing  of  pardon  and  peace  was  first  realized,  was 
of  commanding  importance,  even  beyond  that  of 
faith  and  repentance.  It  goes  without  saying, 
that  a  man  of  Dr.  Hopson's  intellect  and  spir- 
itual vision  did  not  really  believe  that  immersion 
in  water  as  a  religious  ordinance  was  of  more 
importance  than  faith  and  repentance.  The  elo- 
quent Doctor  was  engaged  in  the  exceedingly 
important  business  of  saving  his  climaxes  and  the 
logical  harmonies  of  his  sermon. 

A  Tripartite  Joke 

This  tripartite  discourse,  owing  to  circum- 
stances that  grew  out  of  its  delivery,  became 
quite  famous,  if  not  historic,  in  the  preacherhood 
of  the  Reformation.  It  is  related  that  he  held  a 
protracted  meeting  at  Eminence,  Ky.,  during  the 
pastorate  of  Sam  Kelley,  a  well-known  preacher 
and  debater  of  the  time,  a  man  with  a  saving 
sense  of  wit  and  humor.  The  great  "three" 
sermon  had  been  delivered  on  Sunday  morning, 
and  as  a  group  of  brethren  made  their  way  home- 
ward in  company  with  the  preachers,  about  two 
o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  where  much  fried 
chicken  had  long  been  waiting  for  consumption 
by  the  belated  and  hungry  saints,  the  Doctor  said 
to  the  pastor :  "Brother  Sam,  what  did  you  think 
of  my  sermon  this  morning?" 

"Fine,  Doctor,  exceedingly  fine." 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  123 


"Was  it  not  logical,  scriptural  and  conclusive?" 
queried  the  preacher. 

"Yes,"  replied  the  pastor,  "it  was  unmistak- 
ably logical,  scriptural  and  conclusive,  but,"  he 
added,  "it  was  not  quite  exhaustive." 

"How  is  that?"  said  the  preacher,  surprised  at 
the  intimation  that  he  could  have  failed  to  ex- 
haust anything  in  sight  that  morning. 

"You  left  out  an  important  trinity,"  continued 
the  humorous  pastor. 

"Pray,  what  could  that  have  been?"  said  the 
astonished  Doctor. 

"Breakfast,  dinner  and  supper,"  answered  Bro. 
Sam. 

The  great  shout  of  laughter  that  broke  the  still- 
ness of  the  Sunday  air  showed  that  the  point  had 
gone  home. 

The  Hopson  "Bible  College" 

The  big  preachers  of  that  day  moulded  the 
bullets  for  the  little  ones  to  fire.  The  young 
theologues  and  preachers  of  the  ancient  order 
were  so  eager  to  learn  from  the  masters  they 
would  ride  long  distances,  under  all  kinds  of 
difficulties,  sometimes  on  horseback,  and  some- 
times on  "the  ankle  bone  express,"  to  hear  the 
big  preachers  preach  their  big  sermons.  They 
would  sit  for  hours,  spellbound,  listening  to  these 
master  of  assemblies,  and  it  was  marvelous  what 


124 


MAKERS  AND  MOLDERS  OF 


a  vast  quantity  of  predigested  theological  ma- 
terial tliey  could  take  in.  Nothing  escaped  them, 
facts,  arguments,  allusions,  illustrations,  uncon- 
sidered trifles  like  pulpit  mannerisms,  were  ab- 
sorbed into  their  mental  systems  like  water  into 
a  sponge.  This  was  their  Bible  college,  their 
theological  seminary,  and  it  wasn't  a  bad  one, 
either.  Dr.  Hopson  had  such  an  easy  facility  in 
the  construction  of  analyses  and  outlines,  such 
fluency  and  grace  in  arranging  and  marshaling 
his  propositions,  that  he  became  a  great  favorite 
to  learn  from  and  repeat  after.  This  "three" 
sermon,  to  which  I  have  been  referring,  was 
preached  by  scores  of  men  all  over  the  country, 
and  sometimes  with  as  much  effect  and  power  as 
the  original. 

In  fact,  "The  Three  Aspects  of  Divine  Truth" 
became  so  prevalent  in  action  and  repetition,  that 
it  got  on  the  nerves  of  some  of  the  brethren  to 
such  an  extent  that  Thomas  Munnell,  one  of  the 
ablest  and  most  spiritual  writers  of  the  period, 
felt  called  upon  to  puncture  it  in  an  ironical 
article  published  in  Lard's  Quarterly.  In  the 
spirit  of  melodrama  and  mock  heroics,  Bro. 
Munnell  ransacked  the  heavens  above,  the  earth 
beneath,  and  the  water  under  the  earth.  Meta- 
phorically, he  beat  the  bush  in  all  the  realms  and 
spheres  of  the  universe  where  triplets  of  any 
kind  or  description   were   likely  to  be  found. 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  125 


Where  the  sacred  number  seven  abounded  threes, 
sacred  and  otherwise,  did  much  more  abound. 
These  were  dragged  out  from  their  hiding  places 
and  marshaled  across  the  pages  of  the  Quarterly 
in  stately  and  scientific  order.  It  was  then  ob- 
served with  great  solemnity  and  impressive  dig- 
nity that  these  trinities  were  all  culminating  and 
climactic,  including  breakfast,  dinner  and  sup- 
per; that  is  to  say,  the  third  and  last  represents 
the  ascending  scale,  and  is  therefore  of  more 
fundamental  value  than  the  other  two  members 
that  precede  it  and  lead  up  to  it.  That,  said  he, 
is  the  reason  that  baptism  is  more  important  than 
faith  and  repentance.  Thus  reductio  ad  absur- 
dum  put  an  end  to  the  abuse  connected  with  the 
plagiarism  of  the  "Three-fold  Aspect  of  Divine 
Truth."  It  was  a  great  sermon  preached  by  a 
great  preacher,  who  was  not  to  blame  for  other 
people  abusing  their  privileges  over  much. 

Proclamation  of  First  Principles 

Dr.  Hopson's  great  ability  as  a  preacher  was 
seen  to  best  advantage  in  his  proclamation  of 
"First  Principles."  He  doted  on  the  "everlasting 
yea"  of  faith,  repentance  and  baptism,  the  remis- 
sion of  sins,  the  gift  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  cer- 
tain of  the  fundamental  characteristics  of  the 
apostolic  church.  The  "blessed  dogmatism"  of 
the  gospel,  in  its  elements,  appealed  vigorously 


126  MAKERS  AND  MOLDERS  OF 


tc  the  Doctor's  imagination.  As  an  exterminator 
of  sects  and  sectarianism,  he  was  a  man  of 
'"mense  magnitude  and  huge  ponderosity."  He 
went  straight  and  hard  for  the  solar  plexus  of 
all  opposition  to  the  restoration  cause.  How  he 
filled  us  Disciples  with  an  uncontrollable  enthusi- 
asm in  those  good  old  days,  when  he  landed 
square  onto  the  fifth  rib  of  sectarian  opponents 
and  denominational  advocates,  tumbling  them 
over  the  ropes,  always  to  be  counted  out,  when — 
we  did  the  counting.  When  he  preached  on  the 
"Plan  of  Salvation"  or  "The  Scheme  of  Redemp- 
tion," his  critics  ungraciously  said  it  was  all  plan 
and  no  salvation ;  mostly  scheme  and  precious 
little  redemption ;  and  while  this  was  partly  true, 
it  was  by  no  means  all  true.  All  of  the  churches 
fifty  years  ago,  more  or  less,  conceived  of  the 
gospel  in  terms  of  legalism,  they  spoke  of  the 
kingdom  of  God  in  terms  of  politics  and  geog- 
raphy. It  was  kingdom,  king,  subjects,  territory, 
laws,  constitution,  conditions  of  citizenship,  nat- 
uralization of  aliens,  oath  of  allegiance  to  the 
government ;  all  to  be  literally  and  legalistically 
construed.  In  an  age  when  men  fight  each  other 
with  texts  of  Scripture,  they  are  necessarily  con- 
cerned with  the  letter  of  those  text  weapons,  the 
spirit  must  be  left  to  do  the  best  it  can  for  itself. 
It  is  a  blessed  thing,  however,  that  under  the 
most  rigid  and  legalistic  construction  of  the  gos- 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  127 


pel,  enough  spiritual  light  gets  in  to  convert  sin- 
ners, and  make  saints  of  believers.  The  theology 
of  the  situation  is  a  little  w^rong  in  the  head,  but 
the  religion  is  all  right  in  the  heart. 

Surprise  Power  of  Great  Orators 

Dr.  Hopson  had  the  surprise  power  of  great 
orators.  Sometimes  he  would  startle  his  hearers 
by  the  enunciation  of  a  proposition  which  was  so 
palpably  literalistic  and  juridic  as  to  be  a  plain 
violation  of  the  spirit  of  the  gospel  and  the 
mind  of  Christ.  A  typical  instance  is  found  in 
his  sermon  in  the  "Living  Pulpit  of  the  Christian 
Church,"  on  "Baptism  Essential  to  Salvation." 
After  offending  a  part  of  his  audience,  and 
frightening  all  of  them  by  the  bald  statement  that 
his  theme  was,  "Baptism  Essential  to  Salvation," 
he  would  pause  for  a  moment,  square  himself  in 
the  pulpit,  shrug  his  shoulders,  first  one  and  then 
the  other,  and  then  commence  with  great  delib- 
eration and  perfect  composure :  "Will  a  man, 
then,  he  damned  if  he  is  not  baptized?  Certainly, 
why  not?"  If  the  hearers  could  get  consent  of 
prejudice  to  listen  carefully  for  awhile  to  the  ex- 
planation that  followed  this  sensational  an- 
nouncement, they  generally  found  themselves  in 
substantial  harmony  with  the  speaker. 

As  heterodox  as  he  seemed  to  be  in  sound,  he 
was  practically  orthodox  in  sense. 


128  MAKERS  AND  MOLDERS  OF 


Assertion  was  followed  by  interpretation, 
which  made  it  plain  that  the  eloquent  preacher 
did  not  for  a  moment  believe  that  the  physical 
act  of  immersion  in  water,  either  within  itself 
considered,  or  in  relation  to  any  of  its  associa- 
tions as  an  ordinance,  was  literally  necessary  to 
the  salvation  of  the  soul.  From  the  point  of 
view  of  this  particular  sermon,  baptism  was  re- 
garded as  faith  and  repentance  out  of  doors ;  as 
faith  and  repentance  in  action  and  manifestation  ; 
faith  and  repentance  objectified  and  made  into  a 
visible  and  tangible  line  of  demarcation  between 
Christ  and  the  world ;  the  outer  sign  of  God's 
inner  covenant  with  the  soul,  and,  hence,  an  act 
of  obedience,  involving  the  authority  of  Christ, 
and  submission  to  him  as  Lord  of  all.  A  man 
who  would  reject  or  neglect  a  baptism  like  this 
could  hardly  expect  salvation  by  the  gospel  as 
the  New  Testament  records  it. 

While  this  sermon  and  many  others  preached 
by  Dr.  Hopson  were  pitched  to  the  key  of  the 
legalistic  and  dogmatic  in  religion,  a  deeper  in- 
sight and  a  broader  vision  appeared  now  and 
again,  sufficient  to  make  it  plain  that  he  had 
enough  of  the  vital  in  his  mental  composition  to 
insure  a  continuous  growth  to  the  end.  Like 
Lard,  his  horizon  broadened  and  brightened  to- 
wards the  going  down  of  the  sun.  The  charity, 
catholicity  and  spirituality  of  the  gospel  he  had 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  129 


so  often  preached  and  vindicated,  became  more 
real  to  him  in  life  as  the  days  of  the  years  of  his 
pilgrimage  were  lengthened  out.  Always  kind- 
hearted,  generous  and  manly,  he  did  a  great 
work  for  God  and  humanity  in  his  time,  stood 
high  in  the  love  and  esteem  of  his  brethren.  He 
died  in  the  faith  of  the  church  of  all  good  people. 

//.    GEORGE  IV.  LONGAN 

Geo.  W.  Longan,  of  Missouri,  as  philosophical 
thinker,  profound  reasoner,  and  luminous  ex- 
positor of  the  Bible  and  the  Christian  religion, 
has  had  no  superior  among  the  Disciples  in  the 
three  generations  of  their  history.  As  the- 
ologian and  literary  exponent  and  interpreter  of 
a  spiritual  religion,  it  is  doubtful  if  he  had  an 
equal,  who  committed  his  thoughts  to  paper. 
His  excessive  modesty,  his  lack  of  ambition  and 
self-assertion,  put  a  serious  limit  on  the  area  of 
his  activity  and  influence.  Not  that  he  was  like 
the  "full  many  a  flower,"  of  Gray's  Elegy,  "born 
to  blush  unseen  and  waste  its  sweetness  on  the 
desert  air,"  still  one  cannot  help  regretting  that 
one  so  capable  of  molding  thought  and  inspir- 
ing life  should  have  failed  of  an  adequate  op- 
portunity to  fulfill  his  high  commission.  Only 
a  few  of  the  most  thoughtful,  who  least  needed 
his  help,  found  access  to  the  treasures  of  his 
thought,  and  the  striking  literary  form  in  which 


130 


MAKERS  AND  MOLDERS  OF 


it  found  expression.  As  an  essayist  he  was  great ; 
greater  in  the  opinion  of  the  writer  than  any  of 
his  contemporaries.  His  articles  published  in  the 
Quarterlies  were  masterpieces  of  theological  ex- 
position, and  no  one  needed  to  hasten  from  them 
to  something  lighter  to  take  the  bad  taste  out  of 
his  mouth,  unless  the  mouth  in  question  held 
the  palate  of  a  trash-doped  feather-head  or  a 
fish-brained  ignoramus.  His  book  in  reply  to 
Whittset's  on  "Mormonism  the  Offspring  of 
Campbellism,"  little  known  to  the  brotherhood, 
probably  out  of  print,  is  a  meritorious  perform- 
ance, especially  as  a  constructive  statement  of 
restoration  principles. 

Trend  of  His  Sermonology 

Mr.  Longan's  sermon  in  the  "Living  Pulpit" 
is  one  of  the  finest  in  the  book,  both  as  theology 
and  as  literature.  It  treats  of  the  same  theme 
as  Dr.  Hopson's,  but  notice  the  characteristic 
difference  in  statement  of  topic  and  treatment  of 
theme ;  "Baptism  Essential  to  Salvation,"  "The 
Conditions  of  the  Gospel  Reasonable." 

If  Phillips  Brooks  was  right  when  he  said, 
"No  preaching  ever  had  any  strong  power  that 
was  not  the  preaching  of  doctrine,"  these  ser- 
mons had  "strong  power,"  and  so  had  all  the  rest 
of  that  day.  Both  of  these  strong  men  were  doc- 
trinal preachers,  but  their  intellectual  concepts 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  131 


in  the  field  of  doctrine  were  not  always  the 
same.  They  interpreted  Christianity  as  the  re- 
ligion of  authority,  but  they  did  not  ground  au- 
thority in  the  same  place.  Hopson  based  the  doc- 
trine of  baptism  for  the  remission  of  sins  on  the 
literal  warrant  of  Scripture.  The  amnesty  proc- 
lamation of  a  king  to  a  world  in  rebellion  against 
its  ruler.  Longan  found  the  relation  of  baptism 
to  salvation  in  the  moral  significance  of  the  ordi- 
nance, in  the  truth  which  it  embodied  and  repre- 
sented. Hopson  found  his  explanation  in  the  old 
distinction  between  positive  and  moral  law,  at 
one  time  a  great  favorite  among  the  Disciples. 
Positive  law  was  right  because  it  was  com- 
manded, moral  law  was  commanded  because  it 
was  right.  Ordinances  like  baptism  were  backed 
up  by  divine  appointment  and  command,  and  this 
was  the  sole  reason  why  they  should  be  observed. 
In  fact,  it  was  held  that  obedience  to  positive 
law  was  a  finer  test  of  loyalty  than  obedience  to 
moral  law,  for  most  anybody  will  obey  a  law  the 
reason  of  which  he  can  see ;  only  men  of  strong 
faith  and  devotion  will  submit  to  a  law  for  which 
there  is  no  reason  or  righteousness,  except  that 
God  has  commanded  it.  We  were  fond  of  arbi- 
trary divine  appointment  in  those  days,  because 
we  entertained  the  funny  notion  that  God  had  the 
right  to  do  things  just  because  he  could. 

Bro.  Longan  denied  that  there  was  any  such 


132  MAKERS  AND  HOLDERS  OF 


distinction  in  the  spiritual  realm  as  that  between 
positive  and  moral  law.  No  command,  either 
human  or  divine,  can  change  the  nature  of  moral 
issues.  Everything  that  God  commands  is  right 
in  itself  or  God  would  not  command  it.  Whether 
we  can  or  can  not  discern  the  reason  of  a  divine 
precept,  the  reason  is  there,  and  that  much,  at 
least,  if  necessary,  we  may  take  by  faith.  The 
philosophical  necessity,  intrinsic  reasonableness, 
and  plain  common  sense,  of  faith  and  repentance, 
as  terms  and  means  of  salvation,  it  was  easy 
enough  to  demonstrate  to  people  of  ordinary  in- 
telligence ;  but  how  could  baptism  in  any  relation 
to  remission  of  sins,  be  justified  in  the  category 
of  moral  law,  where  things  are  commanded  be- 
cause they  are  right  and  necessary  in  themselves? 
If  baptism  were  immersion  only  or  chiefly  this 
could  not  be  done.  The  best  effort  that  had  been 
made  up  to  1868,  among  the  Disciples,  to  pene- 
trate the  psychological  and  spiritual  meaning  of 
the  ordinance,  is  found  in  this  sermon  on  "The 
Conditions  of  the  Gospel  Reasonable." 

"Conditions  of  the  Gospel  Reasonable" 

This  somewhat  lengthy  extract,  justified  under 
the  circumstances,  will  make  that  fact  appear : 

"In  all  the  universe,  the  penitent  sinner's  stat- 
us, until  developed  in  an  overt  act,  is  known 
only  to  himself  and  to  God.    But  he  has  sinned 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  133 


openly.  With  a  bold  front  he  has  measured  arms 
with  Omnipotence.  His  rebellion  has  not  been 
confined  to  his  heart.  It  has  not  exhausted  it- 
self in  sympathy.  Men  on  earth,  the  partners 
of  his  crime,  have  been  the  witnesses,  and  angels 
in  heaven  have  looked  on  with  astonishment  at 
his  defiant  airs.  Now,  what  does  the  nature  of 
the  case  seem  to  demand?  Where  does  it  ap- 
pear to  be  proper  that  God  should  meet  this  once 
bold  and  defiant,  but  now  humble  and  stricken 
outlaw?  Where  should  God  require  him  to 
stand,  when  he  bestows  upon  him  the  boon  of  a 
merciful  forgiveness  of  all  his  past  sins?  I 
answer,  'Out  before  heaven  and  earth,  confes- 
sing his  guilt,  avowing  his  repentance,  and  pledg- 
ing himself  to  unflinching  fidelity  in  all  time  to 
come.'  His  faith  and  repentance  must  be  em- 
bodied in  an  overt  act,  that  men  and  angels  can 
see.  Surely  this  is  clear  beyond  cavil.  Sinner, 
in  this  issue  between  God  and  Satan,  your  right- 
ful lawgiver  demands  that  you  shall  define  your 
position.  He  requires  you  to  choose  whom  you 
will  serve,  and  to  declare  your  choice  before 
heaven  and  earth.  Are  you  for  your  rightful 
sovereign,  or  do  you  stand  in  the  ranks  of  the 
enemy?  God  has  established  an  institution  and 
made  it  the  line  of  separation  between  his  king- 
dom and  that  of  the  opposing  power.  This  in- 
stitution is  Christian  baptism.    In  this  overt  act 


134  MAKERS  AND  MOLDBRS  OF 


you  externalize  your  faith  and  repentance,  and 
make  them  visible  to  your  fellow-men.  In  this 
act  you  formally  and  solemnly  dedicate  yourself 
to  Grod.  In  it,  you  vow  eternal  allegiance  to  His 
throne.  In  it,  all  the  holy  desires  and  heaven- 
born  resolves  of  the  inner  man  take  upon  them  an 
outward  form,  and  can  be  seen  and  read  by  your 
associates.  Is  it  strange  that  God  should  demand 
such  an  expression  of  your  faith  in  Him?  Such 
a  pledge  of  eternal  feahy  in  time  to  come?  Nay, 
it  would  have  been  strange,  indeed,  if  God  had 
tendered  forgiveness  without  it.  It  has  its 
foundation  in  the  eternal  fitness  of  things.  Its 
reason  is  clear  as  a  sunbeam.  It  is  not  the  value 
of  the  thing  done.  It  is  not  that  it  has  saving 
merit  in  it.  It  is  not  that  water,  as  such,  has 
power  to  cleanse  from  guilt.  Baptism  is  no 
charm.  It  has  in  it  no  mystery.  Its  sole  value 
is  this :  That  as  an  open  public  avowal  of  your 
faith  and  penitence,  as  a  formal  and  solemn  dedi- 
cation of  yourself  to  God,  in  a  heaven-appointed 
way,  it  places  you  in  a  proper  position  before 
heaven  and  earth  to  receive  the  free  and  gracious 
forgiveness  of  your  past  sins." 

His  Mind  Grew  with  His  Years 

Forty-six  years  ago  this  was  the  best  possible 
interpretation  of  the  psychology  of  baptism  in 
New  Testament  evangelism.    G.  W.  Longan  be- 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  135 


ing  an  intensely  vital  man  did  not  stop  growing 
at  the  age  of  forty-nine.  He  lived  thirty  years 
longer  and,  like  Gladstone,  he  grew  to  the  last 
day.  That  stage  of  brain  petrifaction  called  the 
dead  line  he  never  crossed.  A  subsequent  re- 
vision of  this  exposition  of  the  philosophy  of  bap- 
tism for  the  remission  of  sins,  while  not  sub- 
tracting anything  from  what  had  been  written, 
would  have  added  elements  of  greater  depth  as 
to  the  philosophical  and  real  significance  of  bap- 
tism in  its  relation  to  salvation  of  the  soul.  As  to 
this  we  will  see  farther  on  in  these  reflections. 
Geo.  W.  Longan  was  one  of  the  first  of  Disciple 
leaders  to  face  modern  issues  from  the  point  of 
view  of  the  modem  mind.  Instead  of  receding 
from  him  as  a  back  number,  it  will  be  a  long  time 
before  we  reach  the  "everlasting  yea"  for  which 
he  stood. 


136  MAKERS  AND  HOLDERS  OF 


JOHN  W.  McGARVEY  AND 
ALEXANDER  PROCTER 

Two  Representatives  of  Conservative  and 
Progressive  Leadership 


1.    JOHN  W.  McGARVEY 

As  President  McGarvey  was  my  teacher  in  the 
old  Bible  College  of  Kentucky  University  and  a 
life-long  friend  and  helper,  I  must  pay  the  first 
tribute  of  esteem  and  affection  to  him,  as  a  great 
and  most  influential  factor  in  the  making  of 
Disciple  history. 

When  I  entered  the  college  in  the  fall  of  1869, 
he  was  in  his  forty-first  year,  but  looked  much 
younger.  He  looked  boyish,  but  no  one,  after 
hearing  him,  made  the  mistake  of  taking  him  for 
a  boy.  While  less  magnetic  and  commanding 
in  personality  when  compared  to  some  of  the 
men  of  whom  I  have  written,  in  the  fulness  and 
clearness  of  his  knowledge  of  the  Book  of  books 
and  his  ability  to  communicate  it  in  simple  and 
vital  English,  he  was  not  equalled  by  any  of 
them.    He  was  past  master  of  facts  and  texts. 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  137 


He  had  acquired  more  historical  and  text- 
ual knowledge  of  Holy  Scriptures  than  any 
man  of  his  time.  One  of  his  eastern  guides 
spoke  of  him  as  "that  little  man  from  Kentucky 
who  measured  every  hole  in  Palestine  with  a 
tape-line" ;  but  he  knew  as  much  of  the  geog- 
raphy and  topography  of  the  Holy  Land  before 
his  visit  as  he  did  after.  His  mastery  of  the  land 
and  the  book  has  hardly  been  equalled  in  our 
time.  One  of  the  most  impressive  characteris- 
tics of  his  knowledge  was  its  unfailing  accuracy. 
In  the  matter  of  historical  information  concern- 
ing facts  or  texts,  it  was  the  rarest  thing  in  the 
world  that  he  was  ever  known  to  make  a  mis- 
take. An  opponent  must  make  sure  of  his  facts 
before  he  dared  to  measure  arms  with  this  little 
man  from  Kentucky. 

His  Prodigious  Industry 

The  simplicity  and  clearness  with  which  he 
imparted  knowledge  was  equally  remarkable. 
No  man  ever  used  words  with  a  stricter  refer- 
ence to  their  meaning.  Like  the  apostle  Paul, 
he  used  "great  plainness  of  speech,"  so  much  so 
that  a  child  could  follow,  and  grown  people 
wondered  if  anybody  couldn't  talk  like  that. 
This,  however,  was  the  art  that  concealed  art. 
So  great  was  the  simplicity  of  his  sermons  and 
addresses  that  a  stream  of  light  was  left  behind 


138 


MAKERS  AND  MOLDERS  OF 


in  which  the  humblest  of  his  hearers  could  walk. 
Like  John  Wesley  he  was  methodical  and  regu- 
lar in  his  habits.  His  industry  was  prodigious, 
although  to  the  onlooker  its  prodigiousness  was 
not  apparent.  He  worked  with  such  ease,  and 
with  such  absence  of  noise  and  friction,  that  he 
did  not  seem  to  be  working  at  all.  If  at  any 
time  his  place  had  been  vacant,  it  would  have 
taken  two  first-class  men  to  continue  his  work. 
He  had  four  classes  in  college  and  lectured  four 
times  a  day.  He  contributed  regularly,  most  of 
the  time,  to  two  or  three  of  our  periodicals.  He 
had  a  ver^'  large  correspondence,  asking  all  kinds 
of  questions  on  all  kinds  of  subjects.  Every 
letter  was  answered  with  his  own  hand.  He  had 
frequent  calls  for  lectures  and  speeches ;  was 
pastor  of  the  Broadway  Christian  Church  sev- 
eral years,  and  of  three  other  churches,  with  as 
much  preaching  and  pastoral  work  as  other  men 
had,  with  nothing  else  to  do ;  he  had  always 
one  book,  and  sometimes  two  or  three,  in  process 
of  preparation,  besides  matters  of  family  interest 
and  business  that  always  take  a  considerable 
slice  out  of  a  man's  time.  In  addition  to  this 
long  list  of  strenuous  labors,  all  of  his  numerous 
books  and  literary  contributions  to  magazines 
and  papers  were  written  in  odd  hours  between 
classes  and  at  home  in  the  evening  between  the 
hours  of  eight  and  ten.    In   addition   to  his 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  139 


voluminous  writings  he  gave  more  oral  instruc- 
tion than  any  man  among  the  Disciples. 

McGarvey  on  Acts 

His  first  book,  written  when  he  was  about 
thirty-five,  a  commentary  on  the  Acts  of  the 
Apostles,  was  perhaps  his  most  notable  achieve- 
ment in  the  art  of  book  production.  The  pecu- 
liarity of  this  work  was  the  originality  of  the 
form  of  comment  and  exposition,  which  the 
author  was  one  of  the  first  to  adopt.  Commen- 
taries before  this  time  had  been  like  the  old 
woman's  dictionary,  "Mighty  interestin'  readin', 
but  powerful  disconnected  and  scatterin'."  In- 
stead of  exegetical  comment  on  single  texts,  one 
after  the  other,  the  new  style  was  continuous, 
historical  exposition,  that  one  could  take  up  and 
read  through  like  a  book  of  history  or  a  work  of 
fiction.  This  was  the  first  book  of  the  kind  I  had 
read  through  and  the  last,  until  thirty-five  years 
later,  1  began  to  read  the  "Expositors'  Bible 
Series,"  and  George  Adam  Smith's  two  books 
on  "Isaiah."  McGarvey's  Commentary  on  Acts 
is  still  bought  and  read,  and  no  better  manual  of 
Disciple  teaching  on  the  first  principles  of  the 
Gospel  has  yet  been  written. 

Simplicity  of  Teaching 

His  method  of  teaching  his  classes  was  sim- 
plicity and  perspicacity  in  the  most  effective  style 


140  MAKERS  AND  MOLDERS  OF 


of  the  art.  He  taught  the  historical  books  of 
both  Testaments,  touching  prophetic  books  and 
apostolic  epistles  only  when  they  were  in  some 
way  related  to  the  history.  He  analyzed  the  nar- 
ratives of  these  historical  books,  according  to 
their  subject  matter,  into  divisions,  sections,  par- 
agraphs, notes  and  queries.  He  wrote  these 
down,  and  gave  them  out  in  his  lecture,  for  the 
next  day's  recitation.  He  did  not  aim  at  verbal 
accuracy  or  completeness  in  reciting  Old  Testa- 
ment lessons ;  he  gave  the  sense  in  his  own 
words,  requiring  only  the  same  of  the  student. 
In  later  years  he  put  these  analyses  on  the  black- 
board, leaving  students  to  copy  them  at  their 
leisure.  Later  still,  when  they  had  been  changed 
and  perfected,  they  were  printed  and  distributed 
for  the  use  of  his  classes.  In  each  recitation  the 
students  were  required  to  reproduce  the  lecture 
of  the  previous  day.  In  my  day  we  committed 
the  New  Testament  histories  verbatim,  and  for 
good  count  gave  back  to  the  Professor  every 
point  of  his  last  lecture.  When  we  had  finished 
Sophomore  and  Junior  under  "Little  Mac,"  as 
we  called  him,  we  knew  Matthew,  Mark,  Luke 
and  John,  and  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  by  heart, 
and  we  knew  the  historical  books  of  the  Old 
Testament  in  pretty  much  the  same  way.  This 
thorough  drill  in  the  inspired  Scriptures  set  us 
ten  years  forward  in  our  studies  and  knowledge 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  141 


as  ministers  of  the  Gospel.  That  is  to  say,  we 
were  a  decade  in  advance  of  anything  we  could 
have  acquired  by  any  efforts  or  methods  of  our 
own,  or  anything  provided  by  the  theological 
seminaries  of  that  day  or  this. 

The  First  Real  Bible  College 

A  Bible  College  where  the  Bible  is  the  text- 
book, to  be  directly  studied  and  taught,  was  the 
conception  of  Prof.  McGarvey  and  its  establish- 
ment the  greatest  achievement  of  his  life.  This 
institution  was  for  a  long  time  the  only  real  Bible 
College  in  the  world ;  a  Theological  Seminary  is 
a  dififerent  afifair.  It  was  a  veritable  modern 
school  of  the  prophets,  and  by  means  of  it  and 
the  holy  passion  with  which  he  expounded  the 
truths  of  the  book,  he  became  the  moulder  and 
maker  of  more  preachers  than  any  other  man  of 
his  day. 

His  Devotion  to  the  Word  of  God 

One  of  the  things  that  most  distinguished  this 
man  of  God  was  his  supreme  devotion  to  the 
Bible  as  the  word  of  God.  He  loved  the  book  as 
few  men  loved  it.  In  his  ordination  vows  he 
took  out  a  brief  to  defend  the  Bible  through 
thick  and  thin ;  no  matter  how  thick,  and  no 
matter  how  thin.  Like  a  scribe  of  the  ancient 
law,  he  was  a  legal  advocate  who  vindicated  his 


142  MAKERS  AND  MOLDBRS  OF 


client  at  all  hazards,  and  against  all  odds.  His 
resources,  skill  and  ingenuity  as  an  ecclesiastical 
lawyer  were  magnificent,  and  also,  war.  He 
maintained  from  first  to  last  the  theory  of  the 
verbal  inspiration  and  absolute  inerrancy  of  the 
Scriptures.  He  knew  nothing  of  a  human  ele- 
ment in  the  Bible  unless  it  was  closely  guarded 
and  censored  by  the  divine.  The  first  chapters 
of  Genesis  were  not  religious  poems  to  reveal 
God,  but  a  scientific  manual  to  make  known  the 
order  and  succession  of  the  different  elements  of 
the  creation.  The  Mosaic  cosmogony  was  literal 
fact  or  literal  falsehood.  He  knew  history  and 
its  lessons,  but  nothing  of  the  idealization  of  his- 
tory for  teaching  purposes.  Bible  writers  were 
men  of  literary  genius,  but  unlike  all  other  great 
writers  of  their  time,  and  all  time,  in  the  literary 
framework  of  Biblical  statements  and  stories,  the 
creative  imagination  was  never  brought  into  use. 
They  never  condescended  to  idealize  their  ma- 
terial, or  to  employ  tradition,  fiction,  myth,  or 
legend,  for  didactic  or  illustrative  ends.  Brother 
McGarvey  went  the  length  of  denying  that  there 
was  an  element  of  fiction,  or  work  of  the  imag- 
ination, in  the  parables  of  Jesus.  The  stories  of 
the  Rich  Man  and  Lazarus  and  the  Prodigal  Son 
were  based  on  observation  of  facts,  not  fancy. 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  143 


No  Room  for  Imagination 

Isaiah  was  Isaiah,  Daniel  was  Daniel,  Job  was 
Job,  Jonah  in  particular  was  Jonah,  the  great 
fish  and  all,  and  Baalam's  ass  spake  as  good 
Hebrew  as  his  master,  and  what  else?  This 
great  teacher  of  history  and  fact,  doctrine  and 
the  letter  of  Scripture,  did  not  neglect  the  spirit, 
which  he  possessed  in  large  measure,  and  taught 
to  others ;  but  he  was  deficient  in  the  kind  of  a 
temperament  suited  to  a  profound  and  adequate 
interpretation  of  an  Oriental  book  abounding,  as 
it  does  on  almost  every  page,  with  figures  of 
speech,  imagery,  poetry  and  symbolism. 

My  old  teacher  hadn't  enough  imagination  or 
glow  of  feeling  for  a  pulpit  orator,  but  his 
preaching  was  unique  and  wonderfully  interest- 
ing and  instructive.  From  the  point  of  view  of 
sermon  construction  and  illustration,  peculiarly 
his  own,  and  yet  most  ef¥ective,  I  have  never 
heard  anyone  preach  as  he  did.  His  method  was 
original  and  has  not,  to  my  knowledge,  been  suc- 
cessfully copied  by  anyone  else.  He  would  se- 
lect a  text  from  the  New  Testament,  for  instance, 
from  which  he  would  educe  a  single  truth  or 
principle;  and  then,  instead  of  the  anecdotal  and 
personal  illustrations  of  other  preachers,  he  would 
take  up  an  Old  Testament  story,  bearing  on  his 
theme,  which  he  would  relate  and  revitalize  in 


144  MAKERS  AND  HOLDERS  OF 


all  of  its  most  striking  details,  clinching  points, 
and  bringing  out  lessons,  as  he  proceeded  to  his 
main  conclusion.  I  heard  him  preach  from  a  New 
Testament  text  on  jealousy  which  he  amplified 
and  illustrated  by  telling  the  story  of  Saul's  per- 
secution of  David.  This  narrative  told  in  a  sim- 
ple, artless,  and  almost  dramatic  manner,  was  the 
main  body  of  his  sermon,  illustrating  by  a  con- 
crete instance  the  wickedness  and  futility  of  the 
green-eyed  monster. 

Those  who  said  there  was  no  religion  in  the 
book  of  Esther  because  the  name  of  God  is  not 
found  in  it,  should  have  heard  the  professor 
preach  on  the  special  providence  of  God  over  his 
people,  demonstrating  and  illustrating  his  theme 
by  the  simple  narration  of  the  story  of  Esther, 
in  which  he  showed  that  God  and  the  power  of 
God  for  the  deliverance  of  those  who  trust  in 
Him,  were  in  every  verse ;  the  only  thing  missing 
was  the  number  of  letters,  rightly  assembled,  it 
took  to  spell  his  name.  He  always  claimed  that 
this  method  of  preaching  had  two  advantages, 
first,  it  illustrated  his  subject,  and  second,  it  fa- 
miliarized the  minds  of  his  hearers  with  the  Word 
of  God. 

His  Doctrinal  Preaching 

As  a  doctrinal  preacher,  his  style  of  sermoniz- 
ing was  somewhat  different.    I  once  heard  him 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  145 


through  a  protracted  meeting  preach  a  series  of 
sermons  on  the  cases  of  conversion  in  the  Acts 
of  Apostles.  If  anyone  in  that  community  failed 
to  catch  the  New  Testament  idea  of  conversion 
it  was  not  the  fault  of  the  preacher  to  whom  they 
had  been  listening.  The  Lexington  Professor 
"lightened"  in  those  sermons,  and  General  R. 
M.  Gano  came  along  soon  after  and  "thundered" 
and  a  great  harvest  of  souls  was  gathered  into 
the  kingdom.  Those  were  days  of  doctrinal 
preaching,  followed  by  emotional  exhortations. 

It  was  on  what  the  Disciples  called  the  ele- 
ments of  the  gospel  or  first  principles  that  they 
differed  the  most  radically  from  their  religious 
neighbors.  On  these  elemental  features  of  the 
message,  faith,  repentance,  baptism,  remission  of 
sins,  the  gift  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  as  conditions  of 
salvation  and  church  membership,  the  subject  of 
this  sketch  was  particularly  strong,  and  in  his 
earlier  day  somewhat  combative. 

A  suggestive  instance  may  be  cited  here  of  an 
episode  that  occurred  in  Lexington  in  1870  or 
1871.  When  the  big  congregation  in  the  old 
Main  Street  Church  overflowed  and  swarmed, 
and  the  new  hive  had  been  temporarily  settled  in 
the  opera  house,  the  new  organization  purchased 
the  old  brick  Presbyterian  Church  on  Broadway. 
Prof.  McGarvey,  who  had  been  installed  as  pas- 
tor of  the  new  congregation,  a  few  days  before 


146  MAKERS  AND  HOLDERS  OF 


they  were  to  take  possession,  remarked  half  face- 
tiously to  a  friend,  that  he  proposed  on  the  day 
of  entrance  and  dedication  to  deliver  the  first 
gospel  sermon  ever  preached  in  that  house.  This 
half  jocular  threat  was  incautiously  repeated,  and 
the  fat  was  in  the  fire.  The  "sects"  of  that  day 
took  their  cue  from  Ishmael,  and  the  whole  de- 
nominational outfit  was  a  unit  in  peculiar  mani- 
festations of  displeasure  against  the  Disciples- 
James  Lane  Allen's  "Reign  of  Law"  picture  of 
the  theological  situation  in  the  capital  of  the 
Blue  Grass  region  in  the  late  60's  and  early  70's, 
while  technically  inaccurate  in  a  few  particulars, 
was  substantially  correct,  both  in  spirit  and  in 
truth.  The  Bible  College  Professor  was  de- 
nounced for  his  narrowness  and  bigotry,  and  as 
many  bitter  things  were  said  as  the  occasion 
seemed  to  call  for.  "Little  Mac"  was  not  a  man 
to  back  down  in  the  face  of  a  hostile  demonstra- 
tion. He  straightened  himself  up,  and  putting  a 
little  more  stiffening  material  into  his  vertebra  to 
bear  the  added  burden  of  obloquy  to  be  heaped 
upon  him,  he  said,  "I  made  that  remark  in  a 
joke,  but  since  they  have  made  so  much  fuss 
about  it,  I  will  make  it  good.  I  will  preach  next 
Sunday  night  on  'What  is  a  Gospel  Sermon?' 
and  I  will  demonstrate  the  literal  correctness  of 
my  assertion." 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  147 


Definition  of  a  Gospel  Sermon 

The  first  point  was  a  gospel  sermon  in  outline 
according  to  the  Calvinistic  theology  of  current 
Presbyterianism. 

1.  Original  sin  and  hereditary  total  depravity. 

2.  Unconditional  election  and  reprobation. 

3.  Special  grace  and  particular  redemption. 

4.  Miraculous  regeneration  by  the  Holy 
Spirit. 

5.  Remission  of  sins. 

6.  Repentance. 

7.  Faith. 

8.  Baptism  by  afTusion. 

9.  Church  membership. 

Then  began  the  outline  of  a  gospel  sermon  as 
he  and  his  brethren  understood  the  gospel. 

1.  Jesus  of  Nazareth  the  Son  of  God,  so  dem- 
onstrated by  his  resurrection,  ascension  and 
coronation  as  Divine  Saviour  and  universal  Lord. 

2.  Personal  faith  in  the  personal  Christ,  based 
on  the  Divine  testimony  concerning  Him. 

3.  Repentance,  a  change  of  the  will  toward 
God  and  righteousness. 

4.  Baptism  in  the  name  and  by  the  authority 
of  Christ. 

5.  Remission  of  sins. 

6.  The  gift  of  the  Holy  Spirit. 

7.  Spiritual  fellowship  and  church  member- 
ship. 


148 


MAKERS  AND  HOLDERS  OF 


Here  are  two  sermons,  widely  different,  claim- 
ing to  represent  the  gospel  according  to  the  New 
Testament,  which  one,  if  either,  is  correct?  It 
is  no  use  to  compare  the  one  with  the  other,  for 
that  would  be  to  run  in  a  circle  and  beg  the  ques- 
tion at  issue.  If  a  standard  can  be  found,  the 
authority-  and  sufficiency  of  which  are  admitted 
by  both  parties  to  the  dispute,  the  test  can  be 
easily  applied  and  the  question  settled.  He 
brought  in  the  old  yard-stick  illustration  at  this 
point.  If  the  yard-sticks  of  two  merchants  did 
not  agree  in  length,  the  legality  of  these  measur- 
ing instruments  could  only  be  determined  by  tak- 
ing them  to  the  court-house,  and  comparing  them 
with  the  infallible  yard-stick  kept  on  hand  for 
settling  such  disputes  as  this.  Here  are  two  theo- 
logical yard-sticks,  not  of  the  same  length,  ob- 
viously one  or  the  other,  and  possibly  both,  are 
wrong,  shall  we  exhibit  as  much  grace  and  com- 
mon sense  as  those  hypothetical  merchants  who 
made  comparison  with  a  measuring  instrument 
admittedly  correct  and  thus  forever  brought  their 
controversy  to  an  end? 

Peter  at  Pentecost  the  Test 

Fortunately  for  us  we  have  only  to  carry  our 
sermonic  yard-sticks  over  to  the  court  house  of 
the  Temple  in  Jerusalem  and  lay  them  along- 
side the  one  used  by  the  inspired  Peter  on  the 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  149 


day  of  Pentecost,  and  the  dispute  is  settled,  and 
because  settled  right  is  settled  forever.  He  laid 
down  the  Presbyterian  sermon  and  it  did  not 
"subtend  the  analogy  of  the  case"  at  a  single 
point.  Even  where  gospel  elements  were  put  in 
they  were  vitiated  and  disintegrated,  being  put 
in  the  wrong  place.  When  the  professor  laid  his 
own  sermon  down  by  the  side  of  the  infallible 
standard,  chosen  by  common  consent  as  the  ideal 
of  comparison,  it  fit  all  round  to  the  queen's  taste. 
Indeed,  it  was  not  the  professor's  outline  at  all, 
it  was  an  analysis  of  Peter's  sermon  itself,  which 
converted  three  thousand  souls  on  the  occasion 
of  its  first  delivery.  The  Disciples  were  jubilant, 
the  Presbyterians  silent.  Our  Calvinistic  breth- 
ten  were  squelched,  in  about  the  same  way,  I 
suppose,  that  Brother  McGarvey  was  when  J.  B. 
Briney  unhorsed  him  on  the  organ  question,  for, 
a  man  convinced  against  his  will  is  of  the  same 
opinion  still. 

To  Mr.  Briney  belong  the  honors  of  killing  the 
organ  conscience  in  Kentucky,  by  the  complete 
overthrow  of  its  father  and  first  champion  in  a 
public  discussion  pulled  ofif  in  the  pages  of  the 
Apostolic  Times  forty  years  ago ;  and  also  of 
shattering  the  firm  belief  of  his  students  that 
their  favorite  professor  was  invincible  in  debate 
— and  so  he  was,  unless  he  had  the  weak  side 


150 


MAKERS  AXD  MOLDERS  OF 


and  a  strong  opponent,  and  he  certainly  had  both 

in  that  historic  tussle  on  the  organ  question. 

Mr.  McGarrey's  Finnncss  and  Conservatism 

Brother  McGarvey  was  firm  and,  under  provo- 
cation, obstinate.  He  was  one  of  the  immutables 
who  never  changed.  \\'hen  he  put  his  foot  down 
it  was  down.  AMien  once  a  conviction  was 
formed  in  his  mind,  an  opinion  espoused,  or  a 
cause  championed,  he  remained  with  it  without 
change  to  the  etid.  And  yet  he  did  not  entirely 
escape  the  law  of  evolution  and  the  process  of 
the  suns.  He  was  never  converted  to  the  organ, 
but  he  ceased  openly  to  oppose  it.  The  polemic 
and  combative  attitude  of  his  work  in  the  earlier 
years  was  softened  and  modified  as  time  went  on, 
except  when  he  was  chasing  a  higher  critic.  No 
one  that  knew  him  will  controvert  the  statement 
that  he  was  entirely  conscientious  in  the  belief 
that  it  was  his  sacred  duty  and  solemn  re- 
sponsibility to  stand  between  his  brethren  and  all 
danger  from  what  he  called  "destructive  criti- 
cism." He  was  a  conservative  of  conservatives 
temperamentally,  and  hence  the  slightest  change 
was  unwarranted  and  dangerous  innovation.  He 
always  had  the  courage  of  his  convictions,  was 
always  on  the  firing  line,  fighting  for  what  he  be- 
lieved to  be  the  truth  of  God.  His  critical  column 
in  the  Christian  Standard,  which  he  conducted 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  151 


for  about  twenty  years,  though  able,  and  at  times 
thorough,  did  not  add  anything  to  his  reputation 
as  scholar  or  theologian.  The  spirit  of  ridicule, 
banter,  and  sarcasm  so  often  took  the  place  of 
serious  argument  on  the  merits  of  the  issue  that 
quite  as  much  harm  as  good  was  done.  To  be 
always  plastering  the  blisters  onto  the  unpro- 
tected skin  of  your  opponent  does  the  plasterer 
harm  and  the  plastered  no  good.  People  who 
had  no  personal  knowledge  of  Professor  McGar- 
vey,  who  had  to  form  their  opinion  of  him  from 
his  critical  and  controversial  writing,  had  no  true 
conception  of  the  real  man.  When  they  con- 
ceived of  him  as  cross,  crabbed,  and  picayunish, 
they  were  shooting  through  an  old  abandoned  suit 
of  clothes  hung  up  to  scare  the  crows.  The  man 
had  stepped  out  and  was  generally  engaged  in 
better  business  than  scaring  crows ;  although 
from  his  point  of  view,  this  was  a  duty  that  had 
to  be  performed  and  not  with  any  special  refer- 
ence to  the  feelings  of  these  black-suited,  de- 
structive critics  who  were  pulling  up  the  young 
corn  in  the  field  of  the  Lord.  A  kinder-hearted, 
sweeter-spirited  man,  one  more  devoted  to  the 
highest  ideals  of  divine  service  and  human  liv- 
ing, it  would  have  been  hard  to  find. 

He  once  read  me  out  of  the  synagogue  for  a 
pronouncement  of  mine  on  the  subject  of  Bibli- 
cal criticism,  but  he  did  it  in  such  manifest  pain 


152 


MAKERS  AND  MOWERS  OF 


and  sorrow,  and  with  such  expressions  of  esteem 
and  appreciation,  that  there  was  nothing  to  for- 
give on  my  part,  and  no  interruption  of  the 
friendly  relations  that  had  always  existed  be- 
tween us.  I  did  not  always  agree  with  him,  but 
I  loved  him  all  the  same. 

//.    ALEXANDER  PROCTER 

In  this  writing  of  John  W  illiam  McGarvey  and 
Alexander  Procter  I  have  not  a  scrap  of  data 
or  source  of  information  to  draw  from,  only  my 
personal  knowledge  and  memory  of  the  men. 
My  long  association  and  intimate  acquaintance 
with  the  former  has  furnished  me  more  material 
than  I  could  use,  but  what  shall  be  said  of  a  king 
who  never  organized  a  court,  sat  on  a  visible 
throne,  or  left  any  record  behind  him?  The  hard- 
est literary  task  is  to  write  of  a  great  man  who 
lived  only  in  his  thoughts.  If  you  undertake  to 
reproduce  his  thinking,  if  he  has  written  any- 
thing, your  effort  is  superfluous,  and  worse  than 
useless.  If  there  are  no  events,  episodes,  out- 
ward happenings  and  idiosyncracies  to  hang 
points  on,  what  are  your  Johnsons  going  to  do, 
if  they  cannot  find  Boswells  to  snatch  the  great 
words  from  their  tongues  and  put  them  down  on 
paper,  for  the  world's  profit  and  edification? 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  153 


"He  Went  about  Saying  Things" 

Oh,  what  a  loss  it  has  been  that  the  great  man 
of  Independence,  Mo.,  never  found  his  Boswell. 
He  was  a  masterful  talker,  write  he  would  not. 
This  man  of  genius  resembled  his  divine  Master 
in  more  respects  than  one.  W.  T.  Moore  is  cred- 
ited with  the  observation  that  "Jesus  did  not 
preach  but  just  went  about  sayin'  things."  This 
modern  Disciple  of  the  man  of  Nazareth  did  no 
mere  conventional  preaching,  but  if  ever  a  teach- 
er of  men  "just  went  about  sayin'  things,"  and 
great  things,  it  was  Alexander  Procter.  He 
would  talk  in  his  own  wonderful  and  beautiful 
way  to  anybody,  to  individuals  of  no  particular 
intelligence  or  importance,  the  same  as  to  a  phi- 
losopher, or  a  great  crowd  assembled  to  hear  him 
preach.  He  had  an  aversion  to  writing  even  in 
private  correspondence.  I  never  heard  of  him 
answering  a  letter.  Editors  wrote  him  soliciting 
contributions  for  their  papers,  offering  him  lib- 
eral remuneration  for  his  services,  but  these 
anxious  communications  were  never  answered, 
and  no  copy  ever  materialized.  He  did  write 
one  great  piece  on  "Living  Issues"  for  the  Chris- 
tian Quarterly,  and  a  few  fragments  escaped  his 
pen  for  early  numbers  of  "The  Christian,"  of 
which  he  was  supposed  to  be  one  of  the  editors. 


154  MAKERS  AND  MOLDERS  OF 


Poet,  Philosopher,  Saint 

Like  his  Master,  he  spoke  the  simple  word  and 
launched  the  burning  thought,  leaving  them  to 
do  their  work  in  the  hearts  of  men.  He  had  no 
egotism  and  less  dogmatism.  Poet  and  philoso- 
pher and  saint  were  combined  in  him  in  the  right 
proportions  to  make  a  prophet.  He  was  the 
second  Isaiah  of  our  spiritual  reformation,  the 
greatest  of  all  the  prophets  our  cause  has  yet 
produced.  H  the  Lord  intended  to  make  a  sec- 
tarian or  a  partisan  of  Alexander  Procter,  he 
put  the  wrong  material  in  him  for  that  purpose. 
He  was  positively  too  big  of  brain  and  large 
of  soul  to  compress  himself  into  the  narrow  limits 
of  any  sect  or  denomination  extant.  Logic- 
chopping,  hair-splitting,  Shibboleth-pronouncing, 
prejudice-engendering  sectarianism,  under  no 
guise  of  pretense  or  sanctification,  had  any  at- 
traction for  him.  He  once  said  to  me,  "I  used 
to  preach  what  a  few  believed  and  made  sec- 
tarians, now  I  preach  what  everybody  believes 
and  make  Christians."  He  cared  little  for  the 
old  orthodox  distinctions  of  a  formal  theology ; 
intellectual  concepts  of  religion  over  which  men 
quarrel  did  not  interest  him,  unless  they  stood 
for  the  vital  and  the  eternal  in  the  Christian 
faith.  His  working  creed  was  the  absolute  re- 
ligion expressed  by  the  two  great  commandments 
of  the  law  and  the  prophets,  the  finalities  of  the 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  155 


faith  represented  by  the  mind  of  Jesus  Christ. 
Spiritual  insight,  breadth  of  outlook,  the  open 
vision,  a  vital  and  ethical  application  of  religious 
truth  to  the  lives  of  men,  and  the  healing  of  the 
wounds  of  Christendom,  are  the  qualities  that 
characterized  his  preaching,  and  his  matchless 
talks  were  never  so  matchless  as  when  Jesus 
Christ,  his  divine  Saviour  and  human  brother, 
was  the  theme. 

The  mind  of  this  universal  man  was  a  veritable 
"Cave  of  the  Winds,"  into  which  blew  breezes  of 
thought  and  suggestion  from  every  quarter,  and 
his  mind  was  open  to  every  breeze. 

Intellectually  Receptive 

He  was  intellectually  hospitable  to  ideas,  no 
matter  from  what  direction  they  came,  but  he  al- 
ways maintained  his  virile  intellectual  independ- 
ence and  freedom.  Things  must  be  philosophi- 
cally and  rationally  consistent  and  defensible  to 
command  his  allegiance.  Mere  external  author- 
ity in  religion  without  reason,  or  justice,  or  neces- 
sity behind  it  did  not  weigh  a  feather  with  him. 
The  only  authoritative  thing  in  the  universe  was 
truth,  the  only  authoritative  person  Christ,  and 
Christ  was  the  incarnation  of  truth. 

He  had  a  mind  that  could  penetrate  essences 
and  see  into  the  nature  of  things,  and  was  there- 
fore never  in  the  slightest  degree  influenced  by 


156  MAKERS  AND  MOLDBRS  OF 


minds  that  only  hit  the  surface  and  saw  into 
nothing.  He  had  brains  and  spiritual  vision  to 
make  the  elements  of  a  theology  hang  together, 
which  other  people  were  trying  to  save  by  hang- 
ing separately.  I  once  heard  him  say  that  he 
did  not  believe  in  a  personal  devil,  because  there 
was  no  place  for  him  in  the  universe  of  God. 
From  the  point  of  view  of  a  Christian  interpreta- 
tion of  the  world,  there  was  no  place  in  a  rational 
spiritual  order  for  Theodore  Parker's  fourth 
person  of  the  Trinity,  or  the  Satanic  Majesty  of 
Milton's  Paradise  Lost.  Like  Henry  Ward 
Beecher  he  was  an  early  convert  to  the  doctrine 
of  evolution.  He  believed  in  the  universality  of 
the  reign  of  law.  He  believed  with  Carlyle  in  a 
natural  supernaturalism.  From  the  viewpoint  of 
the  lawgiver,  and  the  forces  behind  his  laws,  there 
was  no  suspension  or  violation  of  these  laws  in 
creation  or  in  redemption,  if  we  could  rise  to  the 
comprehension  of  the  higher  levels.  The  same 
laws  that  operate  in  the  stars  and  suns,  in  the 
continents  and  isles  and  oceans  of  the  earth, 
operated  in  Palestine  in  the  progressive  develop- 
ment and  evolution  of  the  Christian  religion, 
"One  God,  one  law,  one  element,  one  far-off 
Divine  event  to  which  the  whole  creation  moves." 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  157 


Not  Appreciated  by  Contemporaries 

It  goes  without  saying  that  a  man  of  the  di- 
mensions of  Alexander  Procter  was  misunder- 
stood, and  only  lialf  appreciated  by  his  reUgious 
contemporaries.  It  has  always  been  so  and  it 
will  be  so  for  a  long  time  to  come.  During  our 
National  Convention  at  Nashville,  in  1892,  a  so- 
called  religious  paper  of  that  city,  which  prides 
itself  on  being  a  representative  of  Jesus  Christ 
and  his  mind  of  love,  announced  in  its  news 
columns  that  "the  infidel  Procter"  from  Missouri 
was  present  in  the  convention.  The  next  day,  in 
conversation,  without  referring  to  this  item  of 
intelligence  to  save  the  brotherhood  from  con- 
tamination, he  said,  "The  most  pathetic  thing  in 
the  world  is  the  fact  that  when  a  man  comes  to  a 
view  of  God,  Christ,  and  the  Bible,  which  he  can 
hold,  and  respect  himself,  from  that  moment  he 
is  denounced  as  a  heretic  and  an  infidel."  I  could 
not  help  but  say,  "Any  worse,  Brother  Procter, 
than  the  same  class  of  men  said  about  the  Master 
and  all  the  prophets?"  The  fact  of  infinite  pathos 
is,  as  long  as  the  type  of  men  who  could  speak 
of  Alexander  Procter  as  an  infidel  continue  to 
edit  religious  newspapers  and  play  the  role  of 
church  leaders,  both  Christian  union  and  the  mil- 
lennium will  have  to  be  indefinitely  postponed. 

A  stenographer  in  his  congregation,  if  I  have 
been  correctly  informed,  without  the  knowledge 


158  MAKERS  AND  MOLDERS  OF 


of  the  preacher,  took  down  a  number  of  his  dis- 
courses, which  have  been  published  in  the  form 
of  a  vokime  of  sermons.  These  selections  con- 
tain many  of  the  characteristic  utterances  of  this 
Christ-inspired  seer  of  the  New  Age.  The  glory 
of  a  cause  is  its  great  men.  Judged  by  this  stan- 
dard the  Disciple  movement  has  had  its  share  of 
glory.  Many  good  and  noble  men,  as  these 
papers  demonstrate,  have  plead  this  cause,  but 
few  of  them  have  been  as  great,  and  none  great- 
er than  the  man  Alexander  Procter,  who  gave  to 
our  time  the  stimulus  of  a  great  appeal  and  the 
inspiration  of  a  great  example. 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  159 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT 
UP  TO  DATE 


A  Christian  minister  delivered  an  able  series 
of  lectures  in  a  western  town  on  the  great 
churches  of  Christendom,  their  founders,  and 
respective  missions  in  the  historic  evolution  of 
Christianity.  The  peculiar  characteristic  of  each 
and  its  distinctive  contribution  to  religious  de- 
velopment was  pointed  out,  and  in  the  closing 
part  of  each  lecture,  in  addition  to  a  summary 
of  achievements,  theological  errors  and  doctrinal 
blunders  were  indicated  as  spots  on  the  sun  in 
the  ecclesiastical  and  reformatory  movements  of 
history. 

The  Roman  Catholic  Church,  the  Greek  Cath- 
olic, the  Anglican,  the  Lutheran,  the  Presby- 
terian, the  Congregational,  the  Methodist,  Bap- 
tist, and  Disciple,  came  under  review,  with  their 
founders  and  representative  leaders :  Luther, 
Calvin,  Henry  the  Eighth,  Wesley,  and  the  two 
Campbells.  The  serious  mistakes  of  the  older 
Protestant  bodies  and  their  efforts  at  reforma- 
tion were  the  importations  from  Rome  that  hin- 


160 


MAKERS  AND  MOLDERS  OF 


dered  reform  and  multiplied  sects.  These  doc- 
trinal errors  inherited  from  Romanism  and  passed 
along  the  line  from  one  denomination  to  another, 
were  specifically  and  plainly  stated  in  each  case, 
as  still  standing  in  the  way  of  Christian  union. 

An  intelligent  lady  in  the  congregation  won- 
dered to  a  neighbor,  who  sat  by  her  side,  if  the 
lecturer  would  be  as  ready  to  uncover  the  doc- 
trinal mistakes  of  his  own  religious  body  when 
the  time  came,  as  he  had  been  in  the  case  of  all 
the  others. 

The  speaker  had  no  specifications  in  his  in- 
dictment of  doctrinal  errors  against  the  Disciples. 
He  referred  to  the  woman's  remark  but  had 
drawn  up  no  catalogue  of  theological  mistakes 
against  his  brethren.  He  said  very  frankly  that 
his  own  people  were  not  infallible,  they  had 
never  claimed  to  be,  and  he  did  not  hesitate  to 
affirm  that  few  of  the  Disciples  had  realized  their 
ideals,  doctrinal  or  otherwise. 

Is  this  arraignment  quite  as  definite  and 
specific  as  historical  and  theological  accuracy 
require,  in  the  issue  raised  by  the  lecturer's 
critic  ?  Did  the  Disciples  make  no  doctrinal  mis- 
takes in  their  passage  from  Protestant  denomina- 
tionalism  which  brought  with  it  so  many  objec- 
tionable things  from  Rome?  Have  we  failed  to 
understand,  and  rightly  to  appraise  the  fact,  that 
some  of  the  denominations  that  had  least  of  the 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  161 


doctrines  of  Rome  had  most  of  its  spirit?  Have 
we  yet  to  learn  that  intellectual  misconceptions, 
called  erroneous  doctrines,  weigh  as  light  as 
feathers  in  comparison  with  the  spirit  of  pride, 
arrogance,  intolerance,  self-righteousness,  and 
infallible  cocksureness,  generated  by  high  church 
Phariseeism  wherever  you  find  it?  The  dog- 
matic interpretation  of  the  Bible  originated  with 
Greek  and  Latin  Christianity.  Legalism  and 
formalism  came  from  the  same  source  as  far  as 
Protestant  churches  are  concerned.  Protestant- 
ism was  born  in  a  rebellion  against  the  dogmatics 
of  Rome  and  Constantinople,  and  then  in  less 
than  a  generation  set  up  a  counter-irritant  almost 
as  bad;  worse,  in  fact,  in  its  emphasis  of  dogma, 
but  not  quite  so  rank  in  its  stress  of  sacraments 
and  priestcraft. 

An  Overplus  of  Intellectualism 

The  Disciples  appear  to  have  committed  fewer 
doctrinal  mistakes  than  their  contemporaries, 
because  they  learned  early  in  their  history  that 
there  is  no  more  salvation  in  a  Protestant  dogma 
than  there  is  in  a  Roman  Catholic  ceremony. 
Their  first  weakness  was  an  overplus  of  intel- 
lectualism. They  conceived  and  interpreted  re- 
ligious truth  in  terms  of  the  intellect,  failing  at 
first  to  perceive  that  this  would  lead  them  di- 
rectly into  the  dogmatism  and  legalism  from 


162  MAKERS  AND  MOLDBRS  OF 


which  they  were  trying  to  escape,  and  some  of 
them  have  not  perceived  it  yet,  but  most  of  them 
have.  As  the  Disciples  have  been  often  charged 
with  legaHsm  and  a  legalistic  construction  of  the 
law  of  the  spirit  of  life  in  Christ  Jesus,  and  I 
have  used  the  term  several  times  in  these  papers, 
it  may  be  well  to  pause  here  and  ask  what  the 
word  connotes  in  our  religious  terminology,  and 
how  far  they  have  been  guilty  of  the  charge 
which  they  have,  with  open-minded  frankness, 
sometimes  preferred  against  themselves. 

Legalism  stands  to  religion  as  technicality 
does  to  politics  and  the  courtho.use.  It  is  the 
substitution  of  form  for  substance,  letter  for 
spirit,  phraseology  for  fact,  symbol  for  the  thing 
symbolized.  More  correctly,  perhaps,  it  is  the 
exaltation  of  the  form  of  godliness  above  the 
power,  of  the  outward  above  the  inward,  the  sign 
above  the  thing  signified,  intellectual  belief  above 
moral  and  spiritual  character.  The  Quaker  who 
when  smitten  on  one  cheek  meekly  turned  the 
other  and  then  said,  "Now,  friend,  I  have  ful- 
filled the  law,  and  I'll  give  thee  a  lickin',"  was  a 
legalist.  In  observing  the  letter  he  had  broken 
the  spirit.  It  was  a  conscientious  and  highly  im- 
portant act  to  keep  the  letter  of  the  law,  but  of 
no  importance  whatever  to  keep  the  spirit.  The 
man  who  insists  on  immersion  more  than  on  the 
regenerate  life  for  which  immersion  stands,  is 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  163 


legalistic,  and  guilty  of  exalting  form  above  es- 
sence, and  the  letter  above  the  spirit.  Conscious- 
ly the  Disciples  have  never  made  this  mistake  in 
theory,  but  sometimes,  unconsciously,  they  have 
made  it  in  practice.  The  effort  to  abolish  the 
distinction  between  the  essential  and  the  non-es- 
sential, the  formal  and  the  spiritual,  and  the  as- 
sumption that  the  outward  form  is  as  indispen- 
sable as  the  inward  meaning  for  which  it  stands, 
is  one  of  the  ear-marks  of  a  legalistic  construc- 
tion of  the  Christian  religion. 

That  the  Disciples  did  make  this  mistake  is 
abundantly  attested  by  the  preaching  and  the 
literature  of  the  first  two  generations.  The  old  dis- 
tinction, so  strenuously  insisted  on,  between  posi- 
tive and  moral  law,  and  the  belief  that  the  truth 
was  not  obligatory  till  it  became  mandatory, 
were  off  the  same  piece  of  cloth.  These  things 
are  seldom  heard  now,  in  either  pulpit  or  presSj 
except  as  relics  of  an  almost  forgotten  past. 

The  Folly  of  Legalistic  Religion 

The  worst  thing  in  historic  legalism  is  the  as- 
sumption of  finality  and  self-infallibility  which 
inheres  in  all  its  conclusions.  A  typical  legalist 
of  the  ancient  order  was  an  infallible  who  never 
erred,  and  therefore  an  immutable  who  never 
changed.  All  of  his  opinions  were  finalities.  He 
had  the  truth,  the  whole  truth,  and  nothing  but 


164 


MAKERS  AND  MOLDERS  OF 


the  truth ;  other  people  must  come  to  him  or  be 
damned.  Some  of  us  are  still  living  who  heard 
Dr.  Hopson's  famous  saw,  "Others  may  be  right 
and  they  may  be  wrong,  but  we  are  right  and 
can  not  be  wrong."  The  man  who  suspends 
theological  mountains  by  textual  hairs,  must  be 
sure  that  his  hairs  will  hold,  and  he  always  is. 
The  creed  of  a  new  reform  quickly  crystallizes 
and  assumes  that  the  last  word  has  been  spoken. 
Its  pillars  of  Hercules  go  up  on  the  outer  rim  of 
things,  with  its  encircling  motto,  Ne  plus  ultra — 
nothing  beyond.  This  is  petrifaction,  and  rocks 
are  dead.  There  can  be  no  Christian  union  with 
folks  of  this  kind,  for  the  other  fellow  must 
make  all  the  concessions  and  do  all  the  changing. 
A  reformation  of  this  type  goes  out  on  a  mis- 
sion of  conquest,  scalps  dangle  at  its  belt,  as 
tokens  of  victory.  Its  only  terms  of  union  are 
those  of  General  Grant  in  our  Civil  War :  "Un- 
conditional surrender." 

As  the  Disciples  were  committed  body  and 
soul  to  the  great  cause  of  unification,  on  the 
foundation  of  Jesus  Christ  our  Saviour  and  Lord, 
they  were  bound  to  see  in  this  assumption  of 
finality  in  a  human  interpretation  of  the  Scrip- 
tures, the  consummation  of  all  that  was  unin- 
telligent and  silly.  They  saw  that  flexibility  was 
a  fundamental  characteristic  of  a  working  the- 
ology.   If  our  fathers  had  left  us  an  inflexible 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  165 


routine  of  perfect  religious  beliefs  and  practices, 
semper  idem,  like  the  Roman  Catholic  Church, 
we,  their  sons  and  daughters,  would  have  noth- 
ing to  do  but  to  sit  and  look  on.  At  best  an  inane 
and  tiresome  business !  If  God  had  made  a  per- 
fect world  at  the  start,  with  all  loose  ends  fast- 
ened at  both  ends,  all  questions  answered,  all 
problems  solved,  all  perfection  of  thought  and 
life  automatically  attained,  you  and  I,  friend 
reader,  would  be  out  of  a  job,  and  the  universe 
would  be  unspeakably  a  dull  and  dreary  place  in 
which  to  live.  There  is  no  finality  in  our  reli- 
gious conceptions,  and  there  never  will  be,  al- 
though it  is  the  way  of  human  nature,  especially 
religious  human  nature,  for  each  generation  of 
men  to  take  for  granted  that  the  heights  of  the 
absolute  religion  have  been  scaled,  and  no  change 
beyond  is  thinkable.  A  pardonable  conceit,  per- 
haps, but  regrettable  on  account  of  its  conse- 
quences. 

But  the  legalism  of  the  early  Disciple  move- 
ment was  inevitable  if  not  justifiable.  In  the 
war  with  a  wild  emotionalism  and  a  subtle  mysti- 
cism, a  literal,  legal,  and  matter  of  fact  construc- 
tion of  the  constitution  became  a  practical  neces- 
sity. The  man  in  the  field  and  on  the  street  is 
a  born  legalist.  A  plain,  literal,  common-sense 
proposition,  backed  up  by  clear,  intelligible 
Scripture  statements,  that  declare  or  confirm  it, 


166  MAKERS  AND  MOLDERS  Of 


finds  him,  it  liits  where  he  lives,  whereas,  mysti- 
cal and  metaphysical  references  to  the  "inner 
light,"  and  the  baptism  in  Holy  Ghost,  which  he 
has  not  experienced  and  does  not  understand, 
do  not  attract  him.  These  legalistic  expounders 
of  the  word  made  thousands  of  converts  who 
had  turned  away  from  ecstatic  emotionaUsm  and 
mystic  religionism  as  quite  impossible  to  them. 
What  they  wanted  was  a  plain  gospel  that  could 
be  proved  by  Scripture  in  a  way  that  a  plain  man 
could  understand  it. 

Moreover,  a  controversial  age  is  necessarily  a 
legalistic  age.  When  men  debate,  they  use  the 
letter  that  kills,  leaving  the  spirit  that  gives  life 
to  do  the  best  it  can  for  itself,  under  the  cir- 
cumstances. The  polemic  discusses  words, 
phrases,  forms,  methods,  and  verbal  propositions ; 
spirituality  and  morality  are  not  debatable  ques- 
tions. The  Disciples  came  up  in  an  age  of  dog- 
matism and  disputation,  and  were  therefore  com- 
pelled to  fight  their  way  into  recognition  and 
success  with  such  weapons  as  existing  conditions 
put  into  their  hands.  The  time  for  a  hard  and 
fast  construction  of  our  spiritual  constitution  to 
enforce  the  letter  by  compromising  and  sacri- 
ficing a  large  part  of  its  spirit  has  passed ;  and 
the  Disciples  were  a  little  slow  at  first  to  compre- 
hend the  change;  of  late  years  they  have  made 
rapid  progress  in  the  better  way. 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  167 


Sonic  Outgrown  Issues 

The  Disciples  are  no  exception  to  the  law  of 
evolution.  They  have  grown,  and  therefore  they 
have  changed,  and  they  have  changed  continu- 
ously for  the  better.  To  say  we  had  lived  a  cen- 
tury without  growing  would  be  equivalent  to 
saying  we  had  lived  a  hundred  years  without 
living,  for  to  live  is  to  grow  and  to  grow  is  to 
change.  In  the  world  of  intellectual  construc- 
tion, to  live  is  to  change,  and  to  have  lived  long 
is  to  have  changed  often.  As  our  fundamental 
aim  is  to  realize  the  ideals  of  apostolic  Christian- 
ity, the  better  we  succeed  the  more  marked  and 
vital  will  be  our  changes,  not  so  much  in  our 
conception  as  in  our  application  of  truth. 

A  man's  theology  is  his  explanation  of  religion 
in  terms  of  the  understanding,  and  hence  theol- 
ogy is  always  in  a  state  of  flux,  while  religion 
remains  the  same.  Changing  attitudes  of  mind 
towards  theological  issues  come  about  in  two 
ways.  First,  these  issues  are  settled  or  they 
pass  into  other  and  more  vital  issues;  or  second, 
they  expire  by  statute  of  limitation  and  lack  of 
breath.  Most  of  the  old  questions  that  caused 
division  and  separation  between  Baptists  and 
Disciples  eighty  years  ago,  like  a  Christian 
Scientist  when  he  dies,  have  passed  on.  The 
famous  sermon  of  Alexander  Campbell  on  the 


168  MAKERS  AND  HOLDERS  OF 


Law,  the  chief  cause  of  the  rupture,  and  the  war 
that  followed  would  be  innocuous  and  harmless, 
if  preached  today  before  the  most  provincial  and 
out-of-date  Baptist  Association  in  America.  The 
head  and  front  of  Mr.  Campbell's  offending 
was  the  affirmation  that  Christians  are 
under  the  grace  of  Jesus  Christ  and  not  under 
the  law  of  Moses,  and  everybody  knows  in  these 
enlightened  days  that  modern  investigation  has 
settled  this  question  in  favor  of  Mr.  Campbell's 
contention  and  the  Disciple  position. 

Forty  years  ago  one  of  our  favorite  themes 
was  "the  setting  up  of  the  kingdom."  We  used 
the  kingdom  and  the  church  as  interchangeable 
terms,  and  we  had  no  trouble  in  demonstrating 
the  proposition  that  the  kingdom  was  "set  up" 
and  the  church  established  on  the  first  Pentecost 
after  the  resurrection.  Our  Baptist  brethren  af- 
firmed that  the  church  began  in  the  wilderness 
of  Judea  under  the  ministry  of  John  the  Baptist, 
and  some  of  them  thought  that  was  the  reason 
the  Baptist  church  was  called  Baptist.  This  is 
another  one  of  the  old  issues  that  modern  schol- 
arship has  completely  settled  in  favor  of  the  Dis- 
ciples. 

The  ancient  controversy  on  the  priority  of  faith 
or  repentance  died  a  natural  death  because  there 
was  not  enough  in  it  to  keep  it  alive.  After  de- 
bating several  decades  on  the  unpsychological 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  169 


question  as  to  whether  faith  came  before  repent- 
ance or  repentance  before  faith,  they  woke  one 
morning  with  clear  heads  from  a  long  night's 
sleep,  to  discover  that  their  discussion  had  been 
pure  logomachy — a  war  of  words.  They  saw  at 
once,  according  to  the  constitution  of  the  human 
mind  and  the  will  of  God,  if  a  man  believes  and 
repents  at  all  he  must  believe  and  repent  in  the 
right  way,  that  an  unbeliever  cannot  repent,  and 
an  impenitent  man  cannot  trust,  and  therefore 
there  must  be  two  elements  in  faith,  one  before 
repentance  and  the  other  after,  so  that  both 
parties  had  been  right  in  what  they  affirmed  and 
wrong  in  what  they  denied,  as  is  usually  the 
case  with  people  who  debate  religious  questions. 

Some  years  ago  when  engaged  in  conversation 
with  a  young  Baptist  pastor  in  a  Southern  city,  a 
graduate  of  one  of  their  leading  colleges  and 
theological  seminaries,  something  was  said  of  the 
old,  out-worn  issue  between  Baptists  and  Dis- 
ciples, about  as  they  have  been  stated  here,  when 
the  young  man  innocently  said,  "And  which  side 
did  the  Baptists  take?"  This  was  immensely 
funny  to  one  of  the  parties  to  that  conversation, 
but  perhaps  some  of  our  own  sprouting  theo- 
logues  are  similarly  well  informed  on  the  dead 
issues  of  a  generation  ago,  which  are  not  even 
taught  as  history  in  our  denominational  schools. 


170 


MAKERS  AND  HOLDERS  OF 


Our  Growth  in  Spirituality 

The  Disciples  have  grown,  almost  from  the 
beginning,  in  the  matter  of  their  attitude  towards 
the  Holy  Spirit.  The  old  charge  that  they  denied 
the  Holy  Spirit  never  had  any  semblance  of 
truth  in  it.  They  beheved  profoundly  and  rev- 
erently all  that  the  Bible  said  on  the  subject,  but 
they  questioned  many  things  affirmed  by  igno- 
rance and  superstitious  fanaticism,  and  the  frothy 
emotionalism  of  the  time.  As  one  extreme  usu- 
ally begets  another,  it  was  rather  to  be  expected 
that  some  of  the  early  teachers  would  enter  the 
speculative  realm,  and  unduly  rationalize  the 
w^ork  of  the  Spirit.  A  negligible  number  believed 
that  the  word  of  God  and  the  Holy  Spirit  were 
one  and  the  same.  There  was  a  general  disposi- 
tion to  admit  his  personality  as  the  third  person 
in  the  Trinity,  but  some  of  the  brethren  made  no 
other  use  of  him  than  to  inspire  the  Bible  and 
reveal  the  plan  of  salvation.  In  itemizing  and 
elucidating  the  gospel  for  the  benefit  of  inquiring 
sinners,  the  gift  of  the  Spirit  was  put  in  as  num- 
ber five ;  being  the  mystical  element  in  the  proc- 
ess, however,  they  felt  that  they  did  not  certain- 
ly understand,  and  it  was  really  inserted  in  the 
interest  of  theory  and  classification  because  Peter 
put  it  in  on  the  day  of  Pentecost.  They  were 
faithful  in  following  the  Bible  even  when  they 
were  not  certain  that  they  understood  where  it 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  171 


would  lead  them.  The  current  interpretation  of 
the  baptism  in  the  Holy  Spirit,  to  be  administered 
by  the  Saviour,  as  the  distinguishing  character- 
istic of  his  reign,  made  it  out  a  miraculous  affair 
to  launch  the  new  dispensation  confined  to  the 
twelve  apostles,  or  at  most,  to  the  hundred  and 
twenty  disciples  present  when  the  gospel  was  first 
preached  and  the  church  established. 

A  correspondent  wrote  to  Professor  McGarvey 
asking,  "Why,  in  all  your  voluminous  writings 
have  you  had  so  little  to  say  on  the  subject  of 
the  Holy  Spirit?"  He  answered  with  commend- 
able frankness :  "Because  I  know  so  little  about 
it."  That  same  professor  knew  more  of  the  Bible 
than  anybody,  and  the  book  from  beginning  to 
end  is  full  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  His  sermon  in 
the  Living  Pulpit  is  based  on  a  great  Pauline 
mysticism :  "The  Spirit  himself  bears  witness 
with  our  spirit  that  we  are  the  children  of  Gk)d," 
but  he  rationalized  it  by  an  effort  to  show  that 
the  Spirit  bears  witness  through  the  Word.  The 
late  David  King  of  England  said  in  an  annual 
conference  of  the  Old  Disciples :  "The  Holy 
Spirit  is  in  the  church,  but  not  in  its  individual 
members."  "Yes,"  answered  a  spiritual  man, 
speaking  from  the  floor  of  the  house,  "that  is  like 
saying :  there  is  life  in  the  forest  but  none  in  the 
trees,  life  in  the  army  but  none  in  the  soldiers." 

When    Isaac    Errett    said,    in    his  Detroit 


172 


MAKERS  AND  MOLDERS  OF 


"Synopsis,"  "The  Spirit  that  indites  the  Word 
can  best  bring  home  to  the  heart  the  significance 
of  its  truth,"  the  first  part  of  the  sentence  was 
sound,  but  the  last  part  brought  him  under  sus- 
picion of  tottering  towards  the  marshy  bog  of 
sectarian  mysticism. 

The  Disciples  never  taught  the  word-alone 
theory  of  conversion,  but  in  some  instances  their 
conception  of  spiritual  influence  in  turning  men 
from  darkness  to  light  and  from  the  power  of 
Satan  to  God,  resembled  it  so  far  that  there  was 
not  much  to  choose  between  them.  Men  in  this 
practical  age  would  ask.  What  difference  did  it 
make  so  men  were  converted?  And  they  would 
be  right. 

Mr.  Campbell  in  his  great  debate  with  N.  L. 
Rice  in  Lexington,  Ky.,  in  1843,  on  the  subject 
of  spiritual  influence,  affirmed  this  proposition : 
"The  Holy  Spirit  in  conversion  and  sanctification 
operates  only  through  the  truth."  The  argument 
in  support  of  this  thesis  is  perhaps  the  most 
eloquent  to  be  found  in  the  literature  of  the 
Spirit's  relation  to  saint  and  sinner,  but  it  fails  to 
carry  conviction  to  the  religious  mind  of  today. 
Mr.  Rice  agreed  with  Mr.  Campbell  that  the 
Spirit  operated  through  the  truth,  but  denied 
that  it  operated  through  the  truth  only.  He  said 
in  his  criticism  of  the  adverb  in  the  proposition, 
"If  the  Holy  Spirit  operates  through  the  truth 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  173 


only,  why  does  Mr.  Campbell  pray  for  the  con- 
version of  sinners?"  Why  not  preach  the  Word, 
and  leave  the  truth  to  do  its  work,  without  the 
invocation  of  an  influence  outside  of  both?  If 
the  affirmation  is  true,  said  the  Presbyterian  di- 
vine, that  the  spirit  is  shut  up  to  the  word  of 
truth,  the  devil  is  more  resourceful  and  powerful 
than  God,  for  he  reaches  the  minds  of  men  with- 
out the  intervention  of  words.  Mr.  Campbell 
did  not  answer  these  points,  but  the  Disciples, 
for  more  than  a  generation,  have  answered  them 
by  the  elimination  of  the  word  "only." 

A  child,  today,  in  religious  experience,  and  the 
study  of  Holy  Scripture,  has  learned  some  things 
about  the  divine  Spirit  not  known  to  these  giants 
of  seventy  years  ago.  Our  people  have  been 
among  the  first  to  learn  that  the  principal,  though 
not  the  exclusive  channel,  of  the  Spirit's  opera- 
tion in  conversion  and  sanctification,  is  the  per- 
sonality of  regenerated  and  consecrated  men  and 
women.  The  circulation  of  the  inspired  word  in 
heathen  lands  makes  few  if  any  converts,  until 
word  and  Spirit  find  the  opportunity  of  incarna- 
tion in  the  personality  and  holy  character  of  the 
missionary,  who  carries  to  the  dark  lands  of  the 
earth  the  message  of  salvation.  Peter's  soul,  il- 
luminated by  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  endued  with 
power  from  on  high,  did  more  to  convert  the 
Pentecostians  than  the    words  of  his  sermon. 


174 


MAKERS  AND  MOLDBRS  OF 


Otherwise  a  written  communication,  read  by  the 
people,  would  have  done  as  well. 

Our  View  on  Fundamentals 

In  these  latter  days  of  up-to-dateness,  the  Dis- 
ciples are  in  sympathy  and  touch  with  the  best 
thought  and  deepest  interpretation  of  the  Holy 
Spirit  and  his  offices  in  the  work  of  redemption. 
They  are  in  harmony  with  the  best  Christian 
scholarship  in  its  findings  on  the  present  status 
of  the  Spirit  question. 

1.  The  Holy  Spirit  in  the  Old  Testament  is 
God  in  terms  of  life  and  energ^\  2.  It  is  the  same 
in  the  New  Testament  up  to  John  14  where  per- 
sonal attributes  are  first  ascribed  to  the  Spirit. 
Where  the  Holy  Spirit  is  referred  to  objectively 
the  definite  article  is  used ;  where  it  is  referred 
to  subjectively,  the  article  is  omitted,  and  it  is 
simply  "Holy  Spirit."  3.  On  the  day  of  Pentecost 
the  Spirit  appears  as  the  element  of  a  baptism 
administered  by  the  risen  and  glorified  Saviour. 
This  new  spiritual  baptism  differentiates  the 
Christian  dispensation  inaugurated  by  the  Spirit's 
coming  on  Pentecost.  4.  The  gift  of  the  Holy 
Spirit  is  promised  to  all  true  believers,  the  unc- 
tion from  the  Holy  One  that  brings  the  crowning 
and  consciousness  of  sonship.  Ye  have  an 
anointing  or  christening  from  the  Holy  One  and 
ye  all  know. 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  175 


For  a  revival  of  interest  and  a  restudy  of  the 
Spirit  question,  we  are  more  indebted  to  J.  H. 
Garrison  and  the  Christian-EvangeHst,  and  an  il- 
luminating book  he  wrote  on  the  subject,  than  to 
any  other  human  agency. 

Have  faith,  repentance,  and  baptism  been 
brought  up  to  date  among  the  Disciples?  Do 
they  need  to  move  up  in  order  to  synchronize  with 
the  theological  situation  of  the  present  day?  We 
still  preach  "the  old  Jerusalem  gospel"  in  its 
familiar  triple  conditions,  but  we  put  into  them  a 
greater  depth  and  wealth  of  meaning  than  was 
done  in  the  middle  period  of  our  history.  There 
is  always  a  tendency  in  an  age  of  dispute  and  dis- 
ruption to  harden  elements  of  the  gospel  into 
mental  concepts  and  theorizing  material,  so  me- 
chanical and  commercial  as  to  be  more  interested 
in  the  salvation  of  definitions,  plans  and  for- 
mulas, than  in  the  salvation  of  souls.  This  was 
the  old  gospel  of  three  steps  into  a  house,  three 
miles  to  a  town,  three  sections  to  a  bridge,  more 
interested  in  conversion  to  a  system  of  thought, 
apparently,  than  in  the  actual  turning  of  the 
soul  to  God.  We  have  passed  almost  entirely 
out  of  this  period  of  a  superficial  intellectualism, 
and  our  only  concern  now  is  to  emphasize  these 
great  gospel  words  and  put  into  them  the  fulness 
and  richness  of  meaning  inspired  by  the  Holy 
Spirit  when  it  wrote  the  New  Testament. 


176  MAKERS  AND  MOLDBRS  OF 


The  searching  inquiries  of  a  century,  and  of 
many  centuries  from  all  sources,  have  confirmed 
and  demonstrated  our  practice  of  immersion  and 
believers'  baptism,  and  the  future  is  not  likely  to 
bring  any  change  in  this  regard.  In  the  mat- 
ter of  the  design  of  baptism,  or  the  relation  of 
the  ordinance  to  the  remission  of  sins,  or  salva- 
tion, there  has  been  a  change,  and  an  improve- 
ment. The  dogmatic  and  legalistic  construction 
of  immersion  as  literally  necessary  to  remission 
of  sins,  virhich  arose  out  of  the  exigencies  of  con- 
troversy, and  gave  such  mortal  offense  to  our 
religious  neighbors,  unlike  the  voice  of  the  turtle, 
in  the  Song  of  Songs,  is  not  any  more  heard  in 
the  land. 

We  still  believe  that  baptism  is  for  the  remis- 
sion of  sins,  because  the  Bible  says  so,  and  so 
declare  the  historic  creeds  of  Christendom;  but 
that  assertion  throws  us  back  on  what  the  Bible 
and  the  creeds  mean  when  they  relate  baptism 
to  salvation.  The  church  fathers  used  immersion 
and  regeneration  as  interchangeable  terms,  be- 
cause immersion  was  the  symbol  of  regeneration. 
When  Paul  says  the  bath  of  regeneration  saves 
us,  he  does  not  mean  that  the  bath  saved  us,  but 
it  stood  for  the  thing  that  did,  regeneration. 
Water  in  religion  signifies  moral  purification,  the 
inward  cleansing  of  the  soul,  and  when  the  New 
Testament  says  that  baptism  is  for  the  remission 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  \77 


of  sins,  as  a  matter  of  course  it  puts  the  symbol 
for  the  thing  symbolized,  an  allowable  and  very 
common  form  of  speech. 

While  the  Disciples  will  continue  to  practice 
immersion  as  the  New  Testament  form  of  the 
ordinance  that  initiates  and  incorporates  us  into 
the  body  of  Christ,  they  will  spiritualize  baptism 
very  much  as  Paul  spiritualized  circumcision : 
"For  a  man  who  is  only  a  Jew  outwardly  is  not 
a  real  Jew ;  nor  is  outward  bodily  circumcision 
real  circumcision.  The  real  Jew  is  the  man  who 
is  a  Jew  in  soul ;  and  the  real  circumcision  is  the 
circumcision  of  the  heart,  a  spiritual  and  not  a 
literal  thing."    (Rom.  2  :28,  29.) 

Baptism  did  not  take  the  place  of  circumcision, 
but  with  Paul's  consent,  Disciple  sanction,  and 
permission  of  the  translators  of  the  twentieth 
century  New  Testament,  the  passage  is  thus 
brought  up  to  date :  "For  a  man  who  is  only  a 
Christian  outwardly  is  not  a  real  Christian ;  nor 
is  outward  bodily  baptism  real  baptism.  The 
real  Christian  is  the  man  who  is  a  Christian  in 
soul ;  and  the  real  baptism  is  the  baptism  of  the 
heart,  a  spiritual  and  not  a  literal  thing." 

The  Disciples  have  always  been  great  on 
evangelism,  and  in  these  early  decades  of  the 
twentieth  century  have  become  a  leading  factor 
in  the  educational  and  missionary  forces  of 
Christendom.   The  Men  and  Millions  Movement 


178 


MAKERS  AND  MOLDERS  OF 


has  no  parallel  in  any  other  religious  body.  There 
has  been  no  abatement  or  modification  of  the 
claim  that  as  individuals  we  aim  to  be  Christians 
or  Disciples  of  Christ,  as  congregations  of  be- 
lievers, Churches  of  Christ;  as  a  whole,  collec- 
tively, a  part  of  the  church  universal,  and  a  move- 
ment within  the  church  to  bring  back  the  lost 
unity  of  the  apostolic  church  at  the  beginning. 

The  Work  that  Lies  Before  Us 

The  most  timous  and  up-to-date  document  in 
the  literature  of  our  great  union  plea  is  the 
Declaration  and  Address  by  Thomas  Campbell, 
that  launched  it  a  hundred  years  ago.  The  work 
that  remains  is  to  go  forward  to  the  New  Testa- 
ment and  practical  Unification  by  way  of  the  con- 
stitution of  the  Christian  Association  of  Wash- 
ington. Idealization  of  primitive  Christianity 
and  the  ancient  order  of  things  would  be  harm- 
less enough,  provided  its  exploitation  did  not  sub- 
stitute a  theoretical  basis  of  union  for  the  one 
foundation  laid  in  Zion.  Christendom  will  not 
unite  on  a  human  formulary.  It  is  useless  for 
men  to  draw  one  up.  Evangelical  churches  are 
spiritually  united  in  Christ  and  on  Christ,  and 
almost  the  only  thing  required  to  carry  unity 
forward  into  union  is  the  mutual  recognition  of 
each  other  as  Christians  and  each  other's 
churches  as  Churches  of  Christ,  and  practice  in 


THE  REFORMATION  MOVEMENT  179 


harmony  with  this  action.  This  would  tear  down 
at  a  single  stroke  all  separating  walls,  and  the 
people  of  God  would  flow  together  into  one  great 
forward  movement,  to  bring  in  the  time  when 
"They  shall  not  teach  every  man  his  brother 
and  every  man  his  neighbor,  saying,  know  the 
Lord,  for  all  shall  know  him  from  the  least  to 
the  greatest  of  them." 


Princeton 

f^lli2  01199  2072 


DATE  DUE 

— 

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GAYLORD 

PRINTED  IN  U  S  A. 

